Advising and Mentoring Your Students

Welcome to the Mentoring Hub! 

This web hub maintained by the Graduate Division serves as a resource for both graduate students and faculty who support graduate students at George Mason University. This web page provides tools and strategies to create, maintain, and foster strong mentor-mentee relationships.

The Importance of Mentorship  

Mentoring excellence is characterized by a mentor-mentee relationship with the following characteristics: respect, inclusion and support of the whole person; continued learning and collaboration by both mentor and mentee; and shared commitment to the advancement of academic and professional goals. 

These are some important values in a mentor-mentee relationship: 

Faculty Professional Development: Entering Mentoring Training 

The Graduate Division, in partnership with the Office of Research Integrity and Assurance, offers an Entering Mentoring professional development workshop series once per semester. These workshops are based on the data-driven mentorship training originally created by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. CIMER-trained facilitators in the Graduate Division lead this professional development opportunity for faculty, staff, post-docs and graduate students. 

This immersive 8-hour professional development opportunity is usually spread across two half-day sessions but can be adjusted to meet the needs and schedules of faculty cohorts. The workshops equip Mason faculty with the skills to cultivate the next generation of researchers.   

Participants receive a certificate in MasonLEAPS certifying their completion of this mentorship professional development seminar. 

Interested in mentorship training for your lab, your faculty, or your faculty-advisee pairs? Reach out to Dr. Alyssa Bivins for more information. 

If ready to register ahead, you can fill out this form: http://forms.office.com/r/WK1vwBGPhx 

• Best practices for GTA training, created by the College of Science. 

• Thesis Advisor Best Practices, developed by the offices of the Associate Provost of Faculty Development, the Associate Provost of Graduate Education, and the Ombudsperson. 

• The Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning provides comprehensive support for all Mason faculty, instructors, and graduate students as they develop fully as teachers, mentors, and colleagues. 

• The 10 Best TED Talks on Mentorship

External Material for Mentors 

• University of Michigan, “MORE's Guide for Graduate Chairs How to Implement Written Mentoring Plan,” Rackham Graduate School, 2025 (link) 

• University of Michigan, “How to Mentor Graduate Students: A Guide for Faculty,” Rackham Graduate School, 2025 (link) 

• University of New Mexico, Mentoring Micro-Credentials Program https://mentor.unm.edu/micro_credentials  

• Mentoring Ecosystems for Learning and Development (MELD) offers online learning forums that features experts, cutting-edge insights, and practical tools for mentorship: https://mentor.unm.edu/meld 

Supporting Mentee Professional Development 

Mentors can encourage their mentees to create an Individual Development Plan (IDP). IDPs can be used as a tool to guide conversations and help students identify their goals and needs.

External Materials for Mentees 

• University of Michigan, “Graduate Student Mentoring Guide a Guide for Students,” Rackham Graduate School, 2025 (link) 

• Duke University, Mentoring Toolkit: (link) 

• University of Connecticut, Graduate Student Mentoring: A Mentee's Guide, (link) 

• Davila and Gotian, “Tormentor mentors, and how to survive them,” Nature, 2023 (link) 

Meet some of the George Mason faculty and staff with professional mentorship training! 

Want to add a name to the list? Reach out to Dr. Alyssa Bivins.