Amherst HSTEM 2021 Winter
By Andrew Tawfeek ’21
ABSTRACT
In this draft of the final proposal, we outline the motivation, implementation, and structure of a peer mentorship program in mathematics aimed at guiding students through their academic
journey by scheduling meetings between upperclassmen (mentors) and underclassmen.
INTRODUCTION
Attending Humans in STEM assisted me during my graduation in encouraging me to reflect upon my experiences as a human in mathematics throughout my undergraduate career. Upon reflected, I came to realize how crucial having a mentor – whether a professor or peer – was every step of my journey. As we devoted more time to readings in the course, a common issue arose as to what led students to leave STEM: lack of mentorship. This prompted the idea to pursue the creation of a peer mentorship program to provide mentors for students who need it most and encourage them to continue their academic path.
DESCRIPTION OF PROPOSAL
At the start of the semester, the mentor position would be advertised throughout campus for interested juniors and seniors to apply. The application process will include questions on both the personal and academic background of the student, such as their race and preferred gender, then major, goals post-graduation, and classes taken in mathematics. Afterwards, for the evaluation on whether they constitute an adequate mentor, they will be asked questions regarding their motivation for applying to the position and what they believe a good mentor relationship consists of.
After the application period has concluded and the pool of mentors has been obtained, a second application period begins where applications for students looking for a mentor in mathematics are put out. The students will list similar background details as those asked from mentors, but will also then list what they look for in a mentor as well (someone of the same race, gender, similar career goals, etc.) Then depending on the number of applicants versus the number of mentors, two models may be used moving into the semester.
Writing Center Model
In the case there is an excess of mentors, the program can adopt a model after the Writing Center. Mentors will provide availability slots over the semester. Students have access to the slots put up by mentors and may reserve slots with mentors of their choosing to meet.
Association for Women in Science Model (AWIS)
In the case there is a deficiency of mentors, the program can adopt a model after AWIS. Rather than provide availability slots, mentors and students will be paired by those responsible by the program through viewing what students desired in a mentor. The mentor would then meet with a group of 2-3 students biweekly.
In both models, the hope is for students to lead the conversation and have an opportunity to ask questions particular to their academic path that the mentor may have the knowledge to guide them on. In the case that conversations run dry, mentors will have access to a predetermined topic list to discuss with the student in hopes of sparking the students interest in further discussing an item.
CONNECTIONS TO HSTEM
Throughout our readings during HSTEM, there was often a common denominator of lack of mentorship which led them to leave the major. This was due to various reasons, such as inaccessibility to professors and lack of representability. We hope to tackle these issues discussed in HSTEM in this program.
- Inaccessibility to professors: To approach this, we specifically aimed to make peers the mentors, to deal with students unable to approach professors due to reasons such as being unaccustomed to conversing with those higher in a power hierarchy or simply not providing adequate times to meet.
- Lack of representation: To approach this, we hope to hire a diverse group of mentors and take race and gender into consideration when creating pairs within the program. This will allow the students to better see themselves in role models, and encourage them to grow self-confidence in their abilities to pursue STEM.
As this proposal further develops past the draft stage, we hope to develop aspects to the final structure of the program that address more of the issues leading students away from mentors.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
If this program is successful in its implementation, natural next steps include expansion into other majors in the STEM network and increasing the mentor pool. Some other majors have developed mentor programs, e.g. the physics club Spectra has a model currently in development, and one option would be to try and combine the various programs under one umbrella, ideally run by the Moss Quantitative Center. The mentor pool in the future could be expanded to include willing alumni who meet with groups of students at a time a handful of instances throughout the academic year.
REFERENCES
- The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students. Anthony Jack ‘07
- An exploratory investigation of the experiences of Black immigrant women in undergraduate STEM. Meseret Hailu, PhD, Brooke Coley, PhD, Arizona State University
- Women Scientists with Disabilities. National Institutes of Health
- LGBT+ scientists give their views on their workplaces. Nature magazine