North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Campus Box 8107
2400 Founders Drive
Raleigh, NC 27695-8107
soc_anthro@ncsu.edu
Contact: Barbara J. Risman
Partner Institutions: College of Charleston, Elon College, North Carolina Central University, UNC-Greensboro, and UNC-Wilmington
The North Carolina State University proposal builds on the department's strength in mentoring students. Project leader Barbara J. Risman highlighted three goals: “initiating innovative ways of training graduate students to teach; initiating innovative ways of training graduate students to do research in cooperative team settings; and initiative creating ways to mentor minority students that will increase recruitment and retention of under-represented populations into the academy.” NCSU's PFF program offers an experimental model of integrated mentoring. Rather than having an individual mentor/advisor, and having that relationship center primarily on research, the NCSU proposal groups several faculty and students across multiple experiences (e.g., teaching, service) and multiple institutional types. Students who are selected to join the PFF project are matched for one year with a teaching mentor at a partner institution.
Objectives:
1. Research mentoring program has been implemented, where faculty participate and lead research projects that assist graduate students in gaining hand-on research experience.
2. Teaching mentoring program has been implemented, where graduate students teach with a faculty member at NCSU for one year, and spend another year shadowing a faculty member at a different institution.
3. The focus of their mentoring program is on increasing the pipeline of minority students to the professoriate. Orientation for new graduate cohorts is part of an effort to immerse students from various backgrounds in the cultural and organizational environment of the department.
4. Focus group interviews, a short questionnaire, and a day retreat for the steering committee are utilized to evaluate the PFF program.
5. A Footnotes article will be written and members are encouraged to write scholarly articles and disseminate information to other ASA members.
