Inaugural Mentoring in Meaningful Relationships Summit Focuses on Supporting Student, Faculty, and Staff Development | Today at Elon

Leaders from 16 higher education institutions recently gathered at Elon University for the university’s inaugural Mentoring in Meaningful Relationships Summit, an initiative aimed at sharing best practices in building relationships among students, faculty and staff.

Over the course of three days, nearly 60 participants worked in cross-institutional groups to find practical ways to support the development of meaningful relationships on campus with the goal of supporting student success, as well as professional and personal growth. The summit concluded with each group presenting a poster detailing their work in areas including institutional leadership, signature mentoring programs, faculty engagement and development, and overall student success.

“Accept the possibility that mentoring is important across relationships and roles, and often it’s the role of the relationship that shapes and defines mentoring for all parties involved,” said professor Buffie Longmire-Avital, a faculty administrator and co-chair of the Mentoring Design Initiative Team at Elon. “What I’ve learned or confirmed through our work together is that it’s not just the ability to name or identify someone as a mentor in your life that motivates you to seek connection; it’s the ability and desire to be in relationships with others.”

The invitation-only summit, held June 24–26, brought together educators, leaders, and administrators from public and private institutions, large and small, to discuss strategies for integrating and scaling mentoring initiatives on campus. The summit draws from the goals of Boldly Elon, the university’s 10-year strategic plan, and the work of the Mentoring Design Initiative Team, which was formed in 2022 and led by Longmire-Avital and Director of New Student Programs Emily Krechel.

The team recently shared highlights from eight pilot programs conducted during the 2023-24 academic year that focused on developing relationships between students, faculty, and staff, and the summit began with a panel discussion moderated by Longmire-Avital that featured leaders from three pilot programs from the past year, each sharing their vision for an environment that helps cultivate meaningful relationships.

“We all do better in relationships by learning from each other, and that goes in so many different directions,” said associate professor Elena Kennedy, who was involved in a pilot program focused on supporting graduate students. “Part of that is thinking about a campus that has a strong mentoring ecosystem, which I think is about open doors and people being present and engaged with each other and having enough space throughout the day and week to sit down with each other.”

Carla Fullwood, Elon’s director of inclusive excellence and development, participated in a pilot program that focused on developing a system of tools and programs to help people develop the skills they need to effectively build relationships that can be meaningful and impactful. Simply being labeled a “mentor” is usually not enough, Fullwood said. Fulwood’s pilot included LinkedIn Learning and community of practice sessions to help participants identify skills they might need to acquire or develop to be more effective mentors. “Sometimes calling yourself a mentor or even being called a mentor by someone else doesn’t always make you an effective mentor,” Fullwood said.

Working to support the development of meaningful relationships doesn’t always have to involve breaking new ground. Sylvia Muñoz, assistant dean of students and director of the Center for Race, Equity, and Diversity Education, shared her work with Elon’s SMART Mentors program, which was founded decades ago to support students of color at the university and has had great success. The program piloted a cross-cultural competency component and, for the first time, included faculty and staff mentors to enhance the peer support that participating students receive.

“The faculty and staff experience was very powerful not only for the students but also for the faculty and staff who participated in it,” Muñoz said.

A critical element for students can be providing mentoring support in meaningful relationships from day one, said Destiny Payne, assistant director of new student programs. Payne helped lead a pilot that focused on building a structure to support first-year students’ relationship development. Her experiences during the pilot helped her learn that a structure that is too rigid or involves too tight a schedule may not be as effective.

“I learned to be flexible and let our students be a part of the process as much as possible,” Payne said. “It was important to really let them have ownership over what that looked like.”

Summit attendees had the opportunity to hear from President Connie Ledoux Book, who shared her thoughts on why this work is so important now. Book explained that she has seen an evolution in higher education, with an emphasis on engaged learning and a greater focus on pedagogical science. Today, there is a greater emphasis on the value proposition of higher education, she said.

“It’s very hard for anyone to deny the transformative power of education,” Book said. “That’s why I think it’s so important right now that we stand up for relationships and mentoring in education. It’s so transformative, and the data clearly shows that it’s changing students’ lives, and we can focus on outcomes.”

The second day of the summit featured a Provost Fireside Chat moderated by Elon Provost Rebecca Kohn, joined by Provost Pamela Scott-Johnson of Spelman College, Provost Paul Menzer of Mary Baldwin College, and Laura Furge of Muhlenberg College. These academic leaders discussed how the work of mentoring in meaningful relationships can be embedded in the curriculum, the role of faculty in supporting these relationships, and the use of metrics and other indicators to assess success. Most importantly, each reflected on how they strive to be a champion and ally in this work.

Also on the second day, participants grouped into cross-institutional teams to work on developing a game board that detailed the path from “mentoring issues” to “student success” in their areas of interest as a way to visualize the resources that contribute to meaningful relationships. The posters were presented on the final day, and participants were offered the opportunity to provide feedback on each poster.

“Think about how we can do this well,” Longmire-Avital told the teams. “How do we do it in a way that doesn’t encourage harm? How do we build things that are sustainable but also flexible to adapt to changing times? What are the tips, tools, best practices that we can share together?”

Some of these best practices are outlined in two books by Elon President Emeritus Leo M. Lambert and Professor Peter Felten, associate vice provost for teaching and learning and director of the Center for Engaged Learning. Both led a session on the final day of the summit, sharing what they learned along the way.

“We need to do a better job of telling students that one of the most important outcomes of college is a set of relationships that will be valuable to them for the rest of their lives,” Lambert told attendees. “We need to walk them through that process, not just tell them it’s important.”

It’s important to move beyond the idea of ​​a single mentor and relying solely on a single relationship, Lambert said. “I think we have a lot of work to do in higher education, as we’ve talked about over the last few days, in terms of de-emphasizing this one-on-one mentor-student model. It’s not one-on-one. Students need multiple mentors.”

Felten shared research that first-generation college students have been taught and deeply believe they have to get through college on their own. That can make them less open to seeking out support networks or connections that can help them through a difficult experience, Felten said. “We need to teach students that they will do better, they will grow, it will be easier and it will be more rewarding if you do it together,” Felten said.

Rebecca Kohn, Elon’s vice chancellor, delivered the closing remarks, noting the value of bringing together people from very different educational institutions to share, collaborate, and create something new. “Because we’ve been discussing strategies that are being developed or are being developed from different perspectives, we can now think about how to apply them to the common goals of mentoring in meaningful relationships,” Kohn said.