The practice of undergraduate mentorship is broad and occurs through classroom interactions, undergraduate research, independent studies, and informal office hours.

Regardless of the setting, the outcome of good mentorship is transformative for undergraduate students.

Similar to other forms of teaching, faculty and staff don’t often get much formal preparation as mentors before they are thrust into this important role.

A new collaboration among multiple partners on campus- the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF), the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), the BESST (Building Emerging STEM Scholars of Tomorrow ) program, the ASTER (Aligning STEM Trainees for Enterprising Research) program, the Office for Diversity in Science Training, and the McNair Scholars program- aims to fill that gap with two different opportunities. Faculty and staff from all academic areas are highly encouraged to participate in either of these opportunities, regardless of the context in which you mentor students (teaching, research, informally, etc). In addition to the information provided here, there will also be an information session held on Tuesday, October 29th from 10-11 am in the Pine Room at the Kansas Union that introduces these new opportunities.