A good mentor is more than a sounding board or academic guide. Students often refer to someone they admire or who helped them along their collegiate path as a mentor. But what does it mean to be a mentor? How can students take advantage of being mentored?
The Crimson Odyssey program within The University of Alabama’s Graduate School set out to answer those questions. They created a voluntary system designed to help faculty better meet their students where they are. Students also learn how to use the guidance they are given.
What is Crimson Odyssey?
Part of the UA Graduate School’s strategic planning involved offering more mentorship opportunities for students. In May 2024, André Denham, associate dean of the graduate school; Dr. Stephanie McClure, assistant professor in the department of anthropology; and Dr. Joy Burnham, senior associate dean of the College of Education, participated in a two-day training with the Center for Improved Experiences in Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
They learned how to train faculty on how to deliver the CIMER training to other faculty. They also learned that mentors need to be good at it for students to get anything from it.
“Being a good mentor is all about relationships,” Denham said. “Both the mentor and mentee should be able to lay out their expectations from the start. Crimson Odyssey teaches them how to do that.
“We want every student to learn the skills to be successful. But also, for faculty members to learn how to be good coaches.”
The program consists of the Crimson Odyssey Fellows, a group of about 30 faculty who train other faculty on how to be mentors. There are also the Navigators and the Pathfinders.
“Odyssey Navigators are faculty who have participated in training facilitated by the Odyssey Fellows,” Denham said. “These faculty are committed to being the best possible mentors they can be for graduate students and have completed training on all five of the Odyssey Core Competencies.”
For faculty, those competencies are maintaining effective communication, aligning expectations, fostering independence, promoting professional development and articulating a mentoring philosophy and plan.
Pathfinders are graduate students who have participated in training facilitated by the Odyssey Fellows. “These students are committed to excelling as mentees and future professionals and have completed training on all five of the Odyssey Core Competencies,” Denham added.
The Pathfinder competencies are maintaining effective communication, aligning expectations, approaching work-life integration, building research self-efficacy and achieving independence.
Students Become Better Mentees
Finding a good mentor and knowing how to take that instruction is critical to academic success, according to chemistry doctoral candidate Diana Soto Martinez.
“It’s so important because you need those mentorship and leadership skills,” she said. “In the program you get perspective. You learn how to establish open communication with your advisor or mentor.”
Martinez feels other students can benefit from Crimson Odyssey if they seek it out.
“(The program) will be helpful to students who start it earlier so you have those skills throughout school,” she added. “Your graduate school path is easier when you have a good mentor and you figure things out together instead of on your own.”
Martinez believes the program helps students beyond graduation. Given the Graduate School’s first Outstanding Mentor Award in 2020, Burnham can attest to that. Her background is in counseling, so mentoring is not new to her. Additionally, she’s seen how good mentorship is mutually beneficial.
“I have former doctoral students who are in their careers now telling me how important mentoring was to them. It is gratifying to see how they are paying mentorship forward,” she said. “I was fortunate to have good mentors, so I deeply value the mentoring aspects of academia, especially with dissertation work.
“Finding someone you can trust paves the road to success.”
Faculty Become Better Mentors
A 2024 study published by the U.S. Department of Education found that mentor/mentee relationships in higher education often produced positive outcomes for both parties. That analysis found success in four areas: academic performance, retention rates, emotional and psychological well-being and social integration.
Dr. Bill Bergeron is a Crimson Odyssey Fellow and clinical assistant professor of educational leadership. His experience echoes what that study discovered.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that mentoring is a two-way street. Advising is a one-way street,” he said. “Students, especially at the doctoral level, are not always just dealing with academic things. Mentoring better serves both the student and faculty and helps you get deeper into an issue a student is facing.”
The Crimson Odyssey program is completely optional for faculty and students. It’s currently just in the Graduate School, but they hope to eventually integrate it across campus.
Learn more about Crimson Odyssey and other mentor/mentee opportunities on the Graduate School website.