Beginning with the creation of the William T. Grant Scholars program, career development has been a cornerstone of the Foundation’s approach to grantmaking for over four decades. Today our support of career development includes not only Scholars awards, but Mentoring grants and the Early-Career Reviewer program.
Introduction
The Foundation’s support for mentoring aims to supplement the training more typical of academic settings. Academic training is usually very good at helping scholars navigate the skills needed to produce and consume research: Most programs include training specific to identifying gaps in the literature, constructing research questions, and choosing appropriate methods for answering them. Academic training is less clear, however, about the interpersonal and communication skills required to sustain the relationships necessary to be a productive researcher, making the “hidden curriculum” plain, or helping people understand how to create and maintain the robust social networks necessary to gain access to opportunities that will further a research career.
We’ve compiled some resources to support grantees as they strive to create equitable and generative mentoring relationships.
Ideas & Insights
What We’re Learning
How can applicants think about positionality and inclusion in their research teams? The academic enterprise is rife with practices, routines, and structures that replicate inequality along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, economic standing, language minority status, and immigration status.
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Mentoring Guides
We’ve developed these resources as guides for establishing positive mentor-mentee relationships.
