Mentorship

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Mentorship Policy Statement

Gokhale Memorial Girls' College (GMGC) has adopted a Mentorship Program to facilitate enhancement of various skills of students, starting from the initial years of under-graduate study to a wider spectrum. Mentoring, at its core, helps one to grow as a person and become the best version of oneself.

Mentoring is usually face-to-face and conducted over a sustained period of time.

Mentoring in education involves a relationship between two people where the mentor plays a supportive and advisory role for the student. i.e. the learner. This relationship promotes "the development and growth of the latter's skills and knowledge through the former's experience"

Mentorship is crucial to high-quality education because it promotes individual development and growth while also ensuring the "passing on" of skills and professional standards to the next generation.

Mentorship programs are usually offered to support students in program completion, confidence building, and transitioning to further education.

This may involve helping students achieve their personal or career goals, introducing them to new ways of thinking, challenging their limited assumptions, sharing valuable life lessons, and much more. Ultimately, mentoring connects a young person to personal growth and development, and social and economic opportunity.

Both Direct and Cross Mentoring are conducted by the faculty in GMGC. Direct Mentoring is conducted by the mother department faculty and Cross-Mentoring is inter departmental.

The Rationale

Direct-Mentoring by a familiar faculty helps the mentee to shrug off inhibitions and fears and approach the subjects chosen in her under-graduate level with greater interest and attention, thereby contributing to the academic  advancement of the understudy. Cross-Mentoring helps the mentee to share observations on teaching-learning experiences, aspirations, campus expectations and such others which she cannot share with her own faculty. Mentorship in both forms would promote a sustained faculty-student relationship to the ultimate benefit of the institution.

As envisaged and laid out in this policy statement, the specific benefits of being mentored in both forms of mentoring would include:

• being guided in a special manner in the chosen discipline;
• being encouraged and empowered in personal development;
• being helped to identify and achieve career goals;
• being helped to identify and fill in gaps in generic skills and knowledge;
• being able to harness life skills and social skills;
• being able to communicate the shortfalls if any in the teaching-learning process; infrastructure facility; staff demeanour; peer relations and such and express the desire for remedy.

For a successful mentorship program, the college strives to fulfil the following requirements :-

Drawing up the Scheme -

Mentees are the students. Fulltime teachers are the mentors. Direct mentoring would be conducted by own department faculty and cross-mentoring by other department faculty. All students should be assigned to respective full time
teachers and all fulltime teachers to students.

In order to carry out group mentoring successfully, a single mentor is matched with a cohort of mentees.
Identifying the responsibilities of the mentor and the mentees From fostering confidentiality in the relationship to sharing core values, there are several responsibilities that both mentors and mentees should take on to cultivate a successful and mutually beneficial relationship. They are:

• Foster Confidentiality- A mentor should provide guidance and support, while a mentee should be coachable and willing to learn. Additionally, a mentee should have an open mind, be respectful and be able to take feedback positively. A good mentor-mentee relationship is built on trust, mutual respect and a shared commitment to learning.
• Recap and update - Mentees should always end a mentoring session by recapping the main takeaways from the conversation. It allows the mentor and mentee to establish an action plan for the future momentum into their next meeting. The following mentor session should begin with an update on progress on the action taken that was desired.
• Cultivate a Teacher and Pupil Relationship- A Mentor should not only serve as a positive role model, but should know how to offer guidance in an effective way. Likewise, a mentee should crave for this guidance and be teachable.
• Build Trust through Engagement - The mentor/mentee relationship is all about engagement. The mentors should teach by example and always lend a good ear to the mentees to unlock their inhibitions and/or the creative instinct of their mentees. Mentee should always be open to listening to exploring new creative ideas.
• Find answers to Open-Ended and Curious Questions - Mentees should feel free to question mentor with open-ended and curious questions - with due respect
• Facilitate Learning Opportunities - Mentorship is a transference of knowledge, so it is vital that the mentor is familiar with and adept at creating learning opportunities that correspond to the mentee's learning style. Mentors should foster a relaxed, yet productive atmosphere and utilize active listening skills.
• Getting Feedback both ways - Periodic feedback from the mentee is essential. Mentee feedback is important for the Mentor as the latter needs to know if the guidance he/she is providing is being absorbed by the mentee and if it is useful to furthering the mentee's understanding and knowledge base. Mentor too should provide a feedback on the mentees' progress.
• Follow-through - This is the responsibility of both the mentors and the mentees. Mentee's responsibility is to seek out opportunities and experiences to enhance her learning and communicating with the Mentor as and when required. Mentor should inquire as and when possible.
• Share Core Values - The mentor and the mentee should have compatible core values which can be shared for development of sustained mentormentee relationship.

Therefore the core actions of Mentors need to be as follows:

1. ask questions.
2. share ideas as Mentees value their opinion.
3. listen with compassion.
4. offer encouragement.
5. introduce mentees to values, ethics and real life situations.
6. willing to accept the mentees' viewpoints and offer constructive criticisms.
7. help in alternative interests and diversification.
8. help and guide students in a SWOC analysis.. It is the Mentor who can guide the student through a SWOC analysis of her potential, capabilities, aspirations, actions, prospects and inhibitions. Successful mentorship can help student to evaluate himself/herself on his/her own and cope with all difficulty levels.
9. be non-judgemental.
10. be honest and candid.

At the end of the mentoring process, a feedback from the Mentees would be sought, to see how much they have benefitted from the Mentorship programme. Student feedback on mentoring will bring out the effectiveness of mentoring and how much the mentors have been able to help young students to shape their personalities and guide them in achieving some valuable life skills, social skills, career skills and such others.

Reports

Cross-Mentoring Report  Dated 10.05.2023 & 11.05.2023 View PDF
Cross-Mentoring Report 15.09.2022 View PDF