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Mentoring postdocs is a shared responsibility and dynamic process that requires a mutual commitment between the faculty mentor and postdoc. The purpose of this study is to understand how minoritized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) postdocs view and engage in mentoring exchanges with their faculty mentors. In the context of this study, minoritized postdocs include women, people of color, and individuals with international status; faculty mentors include postdocs’ Principal Investigators (PIs).

Three researchers and 31 data sources (i.e., interview transcripts) were used to construct the case. Researchers first deductively and independently coded the data sources using Molm’s (2006) social exchange framework to identify examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges. Researchers then used thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to identify emergent themes among coded examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges.

Data analyses revealed three emergent themes: (1.1) postdocs valued regular meetings and communication with mentors to clarify responsibilities and role expectations, (1.2) postdocs found more value in their interactions with junior faculty PIs who were flexible and open to innovative ideas, and (1.3) postdocs appreciated conversations about short- and long-term career goals and advice with mentors.

Findings offer implications for faculty and postdocs’ approaches to mentoring relationships, and for approaches to cultivating supportive scholarly communities in STEM higher education. Recommendations include flexibility in research assignments, increased awareness of non-academic careers, and opportunities for informal interactions and intra/interdepartmental community building.

The purpose of this duoethnography was to share our narratives as a left-behind early career faculty (ECF) and graduate student with minoritized identities and reflect on academic socialization processes. Specifically, when many scholars are raising alarms about the retention and success of faculty with minoritized identities, it is crucial to recognize the dimensions of socialization within the organizational context of academia.

The authors sought an approach that would facilitate the interrogation of the overlap and divergence of the authors’ perspectives. Duoethnography research design was chosen for its focus on self-reflection as well as on the importance of the expression and consideration of those diverging perspectives. The goal was collaboration to generate a discussion that deepens a complex understanding of socialization in and professional commitment to academia.

The central insight that surfaced from the analysis of our duoethnography data is the enhanced understanding of the “nameless-faceless” dimension of academic socialization. Endeavoring to understand why faculty leave and how those who are left behind make sense of that departure led the authors to examine the unknown entities the authors are responsible to and for so they may better understand their commitment to academia.

The authors’ findings reveal that the nameless–faceless element is just a generalized behavior adopted in the interest of restricted and individual advantage. Diversity and equity practices are touted as a priority, but frequently, institutions act in ways that establish their own self-interests. The authors argue that we are all the nameless–faceless when they participate in academic norms that work to uphold and perpetuate traditional practices in academia.

The authors’ findings point to intentional mentoring and integration of responsibility in faculty roles as potential recruitment and retention tools.

The authors extend the importance of collaboration and mentorship in retaining graduate students and EFC to the concept of intertwined professional commitment, or the theory that it is not simply the outcomes that are influenced by the support and cooperation between faculty with minoritized identities but that our professional commitment to academia is strengthened by that collaboration and witnessing each other's purpose and motivation to remain in academia.

The purpose of this study was to explore how graduate students demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences based on their socially constructed identities during graduate school and the effects of leveraging agency.

This study used critical constructivist qualitative methods (i.e. interviews and visual methods) to explore how 44 graduate students across an array of disciplines and fields at two public research institutions in the USA demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences targeting one or more of their socially constructed identities.

In response to oppressive or invalidating experiences related to their socially constructed identity, participants engaged in self-advocacy, sought/created support via community, conserved their psychological and emotional energy and constructed space for identity-conscious scholarship and practice. Although participants leveraged their agency, the strategies they used were often geared toward surviving environments that were not designed to affirm their identities or support their success.

This study highlights the need for additional research to complicate educators’ understandings of how graduate students respond to oppressive or invalidating experiences and the nature of bi-directional socialization processes.

The findings of this study reinforce the need to foster equitable and inclusive graduate education experiences where students may use their agency to thrive rather than to survive.

Few studies examine graduate students’ agency during their socialization to their disciplines and fields. This study adds complexity to researchers’ understandings of bi-directional socialization processes in the context of graduate education.

In this article, we examine the experiences of African American engineering undergraduate students who participated in two student–faculty mentoring programs. This work provides critical insights about important factors that enhance students' experiences in higher education (e.g. the need for informal community spaces, mentoring and representation).

Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach, participants were surveyed and interviewed about their experiences in the mentoring programs. Data were analyzed using basic statistical methods and thematic analysis.

Findings indicate that students prosper in informal community spaces, where representation allows them to build mentoring relationships that are fostered naturally through common identities in a shared space.

Given the intimate size of the program, the sample population was limited.

To benefit student development, mentoring program practices should consider dedicating funding and space for students and faculty of shared racial backgrounds and lived experiences to meet informally.

This work identifies explicit mentoring program factors that support the development of minoritized students in engineering.

The purpose of this study is to explore how US graduate students described their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) education and engagement experiences outside their academic departments.

This study used a critical constructivist qualitative approach and methods (i.e. interviews) to explore how 44 graduate students across various disciplines and fields at two public research institutions in the USA described their DEI education and engagement experiences outside their departments.

Students identified expanded DEI and professional knowledge as key learning outcomes, while also highlighting the benefits and negative effects of the identity-centered (dis)connection, community and personal fulfillment that came from these experiences.

Given that DEI education and engagement opportunities addressed some students’ needs and were unsatisfactory for others, more scholarship on the nature of these experiences is needed to better understand factors that contribute to students’ desirable and undesirable outcomes. There are also practical implications for faculty who advise graduate students and administrators who are responsible for funding the campus spaces in which these experiences occurred (e.g. graduate colleges, identity-based student organizations).

Few studies have explored graduate students’ participation in DEI education and engagement opportunities outside of their academic departments. Consequently, the efficacy of these initiatives, and the extent to which students benefit from them, warrant investigation. This study, thus, adds to researchers’ and practitioners’ understanding of this topic by highlighting the benefits and limitations of these experiences for graduate students.

Research has shown that for young adults, marital attitudes (e.g., desire, importance, and expectation) are associated with relationship quality. However, how this association plays out for young adults of color is less known. Additionally, the influence of skin tone perception on the relationship between marital attitudes and relationship quality remains understudied. To explore these associations, the authors examined African American and Latinx young adults (N = 57, M_age = 20.71 years, SD = 1.28; 75.4% female) attending a Midwestern university. Exploratory results indicated that marital expectations were positively associated with relationship quality in that young adults who expected to marry one day, reported greater relationship satisfaction, commitment, and intimacy in their current relationships. Additionally, skin tone perception moderated the association between marital attitudes and relationship quality in two ways (i.e., between expectations and satisfaction and between importance and intimacy). Collectively, findings suggest that differing levels of marital attitudes and skin tone perception contributes to young adults’ perceptions of relationship quality. Considering these psychological factors of attitudes, skin tone perception, and relationship quality, together with systemic racial/ethnic discrimination, the authors discuss future research and practice considerations.

This study examined the characteristics of research mentors that successfully support underrepresented racially minoritized undergraduate (URMU) students in education research.

An exploratory case study approach was employed to gain insight into the characteristics. The data sources used to inform this study included surveys and artifacts from eight URMU students who participated in a national grant-funded research apprenticeship fellowship program.

Results revealed three key findings about the characteristics that research mentors need to possess to successfully support URMU students in education research. These characteristics include a willingness to (1) invest time and effort in the mentor–mentee relationship, (2) share relevant knowledge and expertise about education research and (3) serve as sponsors to support and promote their mentees' educational research goals and endeavors.

The results have the potential to improve the quality of successful research mentorship opportunities for URMU students in education research by demonstrating the qualities and importance of these mentoring relationships. Higher quality mentoring relationships have the power to encourage URMU students to persist into graduate school and/or the education research profession via knowledge sharing, support and social capital. This is particularly important as education research – which still largely privileges Eurocentric research perspectives and methods – continues to take much needed steps toward racial and cultural diversity.

Most undergraduate research mentorship literature – and especially that literature highlighting the needs of URMU students – focuses on students in STEM, leaving gaps in knowledge related to students in education research. By focusing on the latter, this study seeks to extend our knowledge of the research mentorship needs of URMU students in education research.