: Posted by Russell Watt in Mentorship Program Discussion
: : Posted by Russell Watt in Mentorship Program Discussion
: : : Posted by Katherine Dedul in Mentorship Program Discussion
: : : So, as you might know, we have moved the mentorship program to exclusively within the Academy.
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: : : Now, according to Lerner Bill #3 (https://www.star-fleet.com/webb/node/877014), the Academy will be required to:
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: : : “The Academy shall be responsible for creating a set of standards and qualifications for a member to become a mentor and remain a mentor, including whether there can be any exceptions and who approves those exceptions. The Academy shall ensure a balance is maintained between having highly qualified mentors and ensuring that there are enough mentors for the needs of the club.”
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: : : We want your assistance in this, I’d like to have a good honest discussion what what has worked well in the past and maybe what hasn’t, as well as suggestions on what we might try to make better.
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: : : So to that end, I think we need to discuss the following questions:
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: : : 1. What has been done in the past that has worked well?
: : : 2. What hasn’t been done very well?
: : : 3. What should the Academy be doing?
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: : : In the interest of clarity, please do include as much detail as to why you feel the way you do about the answers you’re giving. It may seem obvious as the colour of the sky to you, but to others it may be less obvious, so the more detail you provide the better able we are able to understand your position.
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: : : Ideally, I’d like this discussion to remain fully active for about one month, after which I’ll draft the Academy policy based upon it, however if there’s still some clear ongoing discussion, I may extend this and I will of course announce that. So for now, the discussion is slated to close around July 10th. In light of the Exodus migration, I will take responsibility for ensuring key elements of this discussion are saved and reposted on the new system.
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: : : So let’s hear it folks. :)
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: : : -Kat
: : : Academy Commandant
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: : My background in thee club in the area of the mentoring program is as follows:
: : * I joined as an Engineering Cadet on the Columbia in the same year (though later) as Dan Lerner (2006, I do believe) I opted not to have a mentor, because I didn’t want to be a pain, and besides before I made my first post, I read the Players Handbook and other such things several times to prepare.
: : * I graduated and became the new Chief Engineer for the following mission - I followed the guidelines in the PDept on mentor requirements and pestered both the PDept staff and the Academy staff (and Columbia staff) to make sure my email contact with the new Engineering Cadets met the requirements for Mentors. I made sure I always emailed the Mentor Coordinator with my emails to new cadets.
: : * I seem to recall that only one Engineering Cadet responded to my emails and I was concerned I must have been doing something wrong as a result. My CO, Brian Olinski assured me I wasn’t, and that is how it sometimes goes in the academy.
: : * Gene Gibbs was the cadet who responded to my email and he was graduated mid sim to the new Chief Engineer … and I became the new CNS. I kind of took on the unofficial role on ship as ‘mentor to the new Department Heads’
: : * At some stage I also stepped in as COS on the Discovery and somehow three Security Cadets graduated
: : * I then became CO of the Columbia and checked in with Mentor Coordinator to check up on who was and who was not emailing their cadets
: : * Totally unexpectedly I was made PDir and jumped in without knowing what I was doing
: : * Part of my time in this role saw me also taking on the role of MC due to leave of other staff members due to leave. (I was very happy to hand the reigns back to someone else when they returned)
: : * I became XO and CO of various ships in the mainstream Fleets. Because of my huge investment of time in the Academy (and my studies to become a teacher) I opted not to become a mentor in the mainstream fleets.
: : * In either 2009 or 2010 (I am certain it was 2010) I had a complete breakdown in the classroom as a teacher in front of 25-30 7 year olds. It was not pretty (actually it was pretty painful) and this knocked my confidence big time. I was diagnosed with social anxiety and severe depression and getting out of bed (let alone the house) and interacting with people proved too much. Unsurprisingly, my teaching career ended shortly after that. Through the love and support of my family, a (very) select group of friends and professionals in the area of mental health, I improved.
: : * I lost the belief I could be an effective mentor in the club due to this and sabotaged myself in the club. I would sit for hours looking at the computer and not typing. I dropped ships, I continued to not post, I dropped more ships etc and I let my responsibilities here slide
: : * The story I tell myself to this day is .... I suck at teaching/mentoring and I don’t want to let people down who may need the help in the club to post, so I withdraw from such opportunities.
: : * I intellectually know that isn’t the case, but logic goes out the airlock when the feelings of inadequacy kick in.
: : * I am still getting the support I need to this day, and I know I will never be ‘cured’. I am not ashamed of it any more, however and I am pretty much an advocate for people to get the support they need - mental health and physical health are just as important as each other. It’s OK not to feel OK. Speak up if you need help or are struggling, people are generally supportive, but unless you let them know, they won’t know you need support.
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: : That’s my relevant history, anyway (sorry for the sermon at the end there), but it provides the insight into my answers to your three questions.
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: : Most of my experience has been in terms of how the program has operated in the academy, and so my answers have that slant to them. Also, my time in the Personnel Department was a looooooooooooong time ago, so things probably have changed since then.
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: : : 1. What has been done in the past that has worked well?
: : - I found the guide to writing the email to the new members was helpful, especially the email template.
: : - Mentors were asked to email the Mentor Coordinator (MC) when they emailed their cadet, so MC knew whether or not follow up with the mentor/their CO in the Academy.
: : - There always used to be a MC Report as part of the PDept report each month from memory. I think that helped to keep the Mentoring Program front of mind.
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: : : 2. What hasn’t been done very well?
: : - Handover of practices/policies/procedures/files when new PDir/staff appointed.
: : - Follow up to mentors to make sure they were doing their job. When this is done, the program works well, when it isn’t, it doesn’t work well.
: : - Support for mentors, particularly in cases where they were new to the position of DH in Academy if they were promoted from Cadet to DH. They have been in the club for just on three months, and suddenly they are being required to mentor brand new members.
: : - Just doing a general check in with mentors to see if they are having any kind of trouble in their role, their capacity to take on further mentees, do they need a break?
: : - Finding someone with the skill set and patience and time to take on the role of MC and see it through.
: : - Spread of mentors through the club.
: : - Communication of a clear and common understanding of what the Mentor Program is and its aims.
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: : : 3. What should the Academy be doing?
: : - Consider if there some way that the AFLO can be used to provide support to the MC/Mentoring Program. Can they be somehow responsible for part of the program? eg mentors in the mainstream fleets to consider the spread of mentors, communication with COs about mentors who haven’t sent initial emails to mentees.
: : - Include updates to the mentoring program through monthly reports.
: : - Check in with mentors and mentees to see how its going for them.
: : - Provide assistance to mentors if they indicate they need it.
: : - Maintain a private list of people in the Mentor Program in order to make sure mentors aren’t stretched too much.
: : - New mentors asked to explain how they’d support a mentee with particular problems/in certain situations.
: : - Asking cadets following graduation how they found the mentoring program and anything they thought could be improved on.
: : - Some kind of quality control of mentors perhaps (I don’t know what this would look like)
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: : Anyway, I think I’ve rabbited on (or tribbled on) for either long enough or far too long.
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: : Russell ‘Tribble’ Watt
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: I wanted to add: https://www.star-fleet.com/webb/node/688992 is the link to the current mandate from the PDept on the MC role, thought I’d link to it here. It looks like most of what I said above has been done in sme capacity.
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: Russell

Thanks Russ,

This is useful.

Alright, in light of the transfer to Exodus, I wanted to state that on Friday I’ll be saving the posts of this thread for use later (all threads). So when that’s done, I’ll write a “saved” post, once I’ve done that, I think for ease of everything, we’ll take a break from the discussion until I repost it on the new system. Which would probably be about Sunday. :)

Sound fair?

-Kat

Personally, my experience as a cadet in 2014 and 2015 was very wonderful, which is because the staff of my ship was made up of people who were excellent mentors and excellent roleplayers, and to a large degree they were present. The format of the Academy works very well when the Academy is well staffed on all of its levels. With the resources we have available it’s not surprising that that isn’t always the case.

Rather than specifically answer these questions I’ll repost some of what I had written the last time we had a conversation on that topic. I think most people just didn’t notice the conversation happening, otherwise I’d think there would have been more discussion. Here is that thread in its entirety: https://www.star-fleet.com/webb/node/849849 Some excerpts I wrote: “No, I don’t think it’s working on the whole. It’s kind of hard to summarize mentorship on STF collectively because we’ve got a lot of people doing some form of mentoring, and they range from quite awful to outstanding and everything in between. There are people, ten or so currently active that I’d quickly identify though it may be more than that, who are really great mentors. They understand STF very well. They take a lot of time and effort to teach people. They notice things people do wrong and point them out. They correct in a way that is encouraging at the same time. They’re mentoring informally in addition to the ways they formally do it. It’s great. But there’s also a lot of less than stellar mentoring going on. A cadet graduates the Academy and gets promoted to be a mentor without knowing how to snip a thread. A mentor leaves their mentee completely hanging in a thread that is just the two of them. Mentor e-mails to mentees that the Personnel Department is aware of drops from 90%-100% month after month to only happening half the time. A mentor has it pointed out to them that they didn’t send this e-mail to their mentee and they do not send the e-mail the next chance they have. A new member who has a mentor posts in present tense and no one corrects them, and they continue to post in the present tense. Half the club seems to have no idea how to put something proper in the location field of a post. A mentor loses patience with a mentee. A mentor makes a mentee think they did something wrong when they didn’t. An experienced player in a position of mentorship completely snips out a new player’s first attempt to join a main sim. All stuff I’ve seen and I could go on and on and on. A lot of that got dealt with, in some cases with the mentor being removed. I guess my point is bad mentorship happens. And that is to be expected given the limited nature of our resources and that we have imperfect people doing the mentoring. But I’d like to think it can improve.” “I think this lack of mentor welcome e-mails can and should be addressed. People need to be individually followed up with if that isn’t currently happening. And if it continues to be a problem after attempts to correct it are made they should not be allowed to continue as mentors. To me sending that e-mail is a bare minimum sort of task and if it’s not happening it makes me wonder what else the mentors aren’t doing that they should. I think it’d be good to reach out to people who are newer at being a mentor and ask them what they think would help them. Cale mentioned to me creating a mentor’s course in the Academy and I think that idea certainly has merit. Hmm, do you have something like a mentor’s mentor? Maybe that could be another category in the Command Mentorship Program. Maybe writing one of those tips in Ten Forward on how to be a great mentor could help.” Adam W.

Thanks Adam,

I would say with the followup problem, that is something that a good mentors coordinator can handle, Ash and I will discuss and establish a sort of standard operating procedure when it comes to tracking when mentors follow up to make sure that initial contact email is being sent in a timely fashion.

As for consistency, I like the idea of some sort of public document in the Academy about mentorship, if not a course, perhaps handbook that covers over sort of the standard things a mentor should be expected to be able to do.

-Kat

I’m reposting this all for reference. I’ll post a draft set of policy rules for mentors for discussion tomorrow or the following day.

-Kat