I’ve been meaning to write a blog about mentoring for a while. The death of Jack McArdle has propelled me to write not about mentoring itself, but about some of the mentors whom I have had. Through the descriptions of my interactions with these individuals, I hope to shed light on what the mentoring/mentee relationship can be, if it is to help individuals reach their fullest potential. It should be noted that this list of individuals is not exhaustive by any means. It does not include my parents or other family members, people before my college years, nor any of my colleagues, other thesis/dissertation committee members, etc., who have also had a profound impact on me. I have truly been blessed. (Note that I will always and forever refer to my undergraduate professors as Dr.)
Deborah Haskins
Dr. Haskins was one of my professors at Loyola College (now Loyola University, Maryland). I actually didn’t take a class with Dr. Haskins until my senior year. Yet, she was somehow a part of my life before then. That’s because Dr. Haskins took a personal interest in her students. It wasn’t until my senior year when she took me out for a "congratulations, you’re graduating" lunch that she shared with me that the reason she made a point to take students to lunch was to ensure that we know that there is someone there who is looking out for us. Loyola is a predominantly white institution (PWI). Dr. Haskins is Black. If you know, you know. I didn’t really understand then the importance of her taking me out to lunch and all the other ways she showed me support during my years at Loyola as I do now. She had my back even though I didn’t realize how much it was needed. In one of my journal entries from my senior year, I noted “how little I will miss any students at Loyola. It’s the professors that I will miss most”.
Faith Gilroy
Dr. Gilroy was another one of my professors at Loyola. She told me about summer research programs. I was a student in her Research Methods class and one day she handed me a flyer and said here’s information about a summer research program and she told me to apply. So, I applied and was accepted to the University of South Carolina summer REU in psychology for the summer of my junior year. I didn’t know about summer research programs and were it not for Dr. Gilroy, I never would have known (at the time). I couldn’t believe I would be paid, PAID(!!!) to go learn for the summer. Now I have my own summer and other research programs where I get to pay students to learn!
I was extremely shy in college. Dr. Gilroy helped me to speak up more. One day after class, Dr. Gilroy asked me why I always seem to know the answers to the questions she asks during class, but I never raise my hand to answer. (She knew I knew the answers because whenever she asked a question in class and no one responded, she started calling on me as a go to person. Now that I’m a professor, I totally understand that complete silence after you ask students a question and how helpful it is to have just one student volunteer—and in the Zoom world, those students who turn their cameras on and nod along are a treasure). I told Dr. Gilroy that the idea of speaking in class/public makes me nervous. She said any time I’m going to class, I should go prepared with just one thing to say. During class time when the opportunity presents itself, I can raise my hand and say the one thing I had already prepared. To this day, I still use this tip, even when (especially when) I’m attending faculty meetings. Those agenda items that to some might seem like they say nothing, to me says what I can go prepared to speak about.
One day in my sophomore year, I had a writing assignment in Dr. Gilroy’s class and I took a rough draft to her for feedback before the deadline. She tore it up. I had all kinds of writing issues (for a psychology paper). After I met with her, I had to basically start from scratch to work on the “final draft”. But during my meeting, she gave me tips on how to improve my writing. She said: when you are reading, take note of how others write and if you read something that is written very well, copy it down and use the same sentence structure in your own writing. (I give this same advice to my own students now). One day in my senior year when I showed Dr. Gilroy something I had recently written, she looked at me and said something like “wow, your writing has really improved. Do you remember that first paper you showed in your sophomore year? That was a bit of a mess, huh?” And we both had a good laugh.
Dr. Gilroy is the reason why I went straight to graduate school from undergrad. I was all set to complete Loyola’s 5 year program to get myself a master’s in psychology right after undergrad and I was taking master’s classes in my senior year, along with finishing up any remaining undergrad requirements. But one day early in the fall semester of my senior year, I went to Dr. Gilroy’s office to get feedback on something and she asked me what plans I had for the future. I told her I was planning to finish the master’s and then see what comes next. She asked me if I knew that I could go straight into a PhD program without getting a master’s first. I said no, I didn’t know that. She said yes, go home and look into it and apply. And I did just that. Because of Dr. Gilroy, I somehow stumbled upon this thing called quantitative psychology and got a PhD in this thing called quantitative psych, straight out of undergrad. Now I get to tell my students that they too can get a PhD straight out of undergrad if that is that path they would like to go on.
John Horn
It’s because of Dr. Gilroy that I ended up at the University of Southern California. And where I was blessed to meet John.
As a graduate student, one of my outlets was to play in the community orchestra. Each year, I invited John to the concert and one year, he showed up! I felt like a child looking out in the audience to see if their parent would show up and he did! He did! I looked out into the audience and I saw that white hair, and he had a notepad and looked to be taking notes about something. After the concert, would you believe he said we played all his favorite songs?
One year, John invited me to his granddaughter’s dance recital. Knowing that I didn’t have a car, he picked me up, took me to the recital, took me to eat afterwards, and then dropped me back to my apartment afterwards.
Knowing that my family was on the east coast, one year, John invited me to his home for thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite thanksgiving memories. We had hors d’oeuvres outside before all going inside for a huge thanksgiving meal.
One day, when John asked me what I most wanted to do in this world, I replied that I wanted to be a good wife and mother. He asked me what I was doing to make that happen and proceeded to give me advice for about an hour instead of us talking about whatever we were supposed to be meeting about that day.
John gave me advice on who (what combination of individuals) to include/not include on my thesis/dissertation committees. He also told me language that I should never use or authors whom I should never cite. The field of intelligence is filled with racism/racists and if you’re not careful, you can continue to perpetuate the same harm other individuals caused even as you are trying to dismantle that harm.
John never criticized or critiqued me in public. He always sang my praises to others. Even during my thesis/dissertation proposal meetings, any questions he asked were meant to highlight my strengths.
John showed me how to “network”. He invited me as a guest to the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology (SMEP) meeting in Naples, Florida. That was the first conference/professional meeting I ever attended. On the night after the banquet dinner we were sitting at the table and John said I should get up and walk around and get to know some people. I told him I don’t really know how to do that. He said come with me and I’ll show you. And he did. He took me to a group that was standing around talking, showed me how to get into the conversation, got himself into the conversation, and then brought me into it as well. He introduced me to many people there. That’s how I met Lisa Harlow (and other SMEP folks who I also consider mentors). Were it not for John, I would have gone back to my hotel room after the banquet dinner and never really spoken to anyone other than a few of those at the dinner table.
John always provided me with detailed feedback on the things that I wrote. This was during a time when not everything was online. I would sometimes get feedback written between the lines of a printed-out document with more written on the backs of those same pages. Other times I would get a document with changes tracked, with changes everywhere. I would go back to what I originally wrote to see if what I said and how John had revised it was the same thing I had written originally. And it always was, but said so much better. The first time he gave me feedback, he proceeded it by saying something like “You’re a good writer. [Thank you Dr. Gilroy]. Take these comments not as criticisms of your work, but as cosmetic feedback to help improve your work”. I say the same thing to my students now when I return their work (with red everywhere).
So many more stories. If you’re wondering who John was, he’s THE John Horn of fluid and crystallized intelligence fame. That John. He was my graduate school mentor.
Jack McArdle
Through John, I heard about and eventually met Jack McArdle. I went to USC to work with John, and got Jack as a bonus. Jack was John’s postdoctoral student from 1977-1980, although the story is that Jack had the legacy of being John’s longest post-doc.
I got to really learn from Jack for the first time when I participated in his APA summer training workshop in Hawaii in 2004. Jack made complicated topics seem so easy. He made you feel like you could understand it-- that you were capable.
John and I often talked about me going to the University of Virginia for a summer or semester to work with Jack, but then Jack joined the faculty at USC in 2006. When he did, I somehow became part of his lab. He invited me to work on a paper with him. He invited me to lab events. When his post-doc, Kelly Kadlec, arrived, he told me I should meet her. (I did and we are friends to this day). Jack made me feel welcomed at all times.
From the time he came to USC, Jack took me right under his wing as if I were his own student, because I kind of already was. E.g., One year, I attended a SMEP meeting in Lake Tahoe, CA. When Jack saw I was there, he said instead of flying back to LA at the end of the meeting, I should drive back with him and his graduate students so I can get to know them better and they can get to know me. You mean I should cancel my quick flight and instead ride a long 8 hours back? No brainer. I cancelled my return ticket. (Fast forward to 2018 and I took my own students on a road trip for them to present at a conference. It was a good time had by all).
Jack continued to mentor me even after I left California. He came to give a talk at UNC Greensboro where I was doing my post-doc just because I invited him. He invited me to be a guest at a SMEP meeting in North Carolina. He invited me to attend a workshop at UVA on the Health and Retirement Study (HRS-AHEAD) data (which helped us finally publish the paper he had invited me to work on when I was USC). And so much more.
When I think of Jack, I really don’t remember the first time I met him. That’s because Jack was always a presence from the day I met John. Jack was somehow always there to give support or advice as needed. And oh the stories he would tell. Hilarious.
Marion O’Brien
I first “met” Marion when I cold emailed her to ask her to serve as my mentor on the Carolina Consortium on Human Development post-doctoral fellow application. Marion knew me from nowhere and I didn’t know her. She was someone I had found by looking through the online list of all the possible mentors who were part of the program and thought Marion’s interests best aligned with mine.
She responded very kindly to that email and worked on an application with a student whom she had never met. I didn’t get the post-doctoral fellowship. It was just as well, because I ended up delaying my graduation when John got sick.
Fast forward one year later-- I’m at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) biennial meeting stalking the job board because then I really needed a job. I happened to see that a job had been posted for a Project Manager position on a project with, guess who? Marion. I quickly emailed her and said remember me? You worked on that application with me last year that I didn’t get but I just saw the job you posted and I’m at SRCD too and would love to meet you and learn more about the job. She said she had just left to head back to North Carolina (bummer), but aside from the Project Manager position, a post-doctoral position might be available and that would be a better opportunity for me because it would provide me with more freedom. Imagine that. A post-doctoral mentor looking out for my best interest even before I was her postdoctoral student! And Marion continued to look out for me throughout my entire post-doc position and beyond.
When I said I was interested in teaching a course as part of my training, she was supportive. When I said I was invited to interview for the position I had applied for at Spelman, she was supportive. When I said I’m only doing this interview for practice and I’m not looking to leave my post-doc yet (Most of my colleagues know this story), she was supportive. When I came back and said um… if Spelman offers me the job, I’ll take it, she was supportive.
And when I eventually left the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG) for Spelman, I left with so much more than I had ever expected to receive in a post-doc. I knew I always had a place and person to call on whenever I needed. And I did. Any big decisions I made, I would consult with Marion. But my most cherished memory is the fact that when I would do long distance drives from Atlanta to Baltimore or vice versa, Marion’s house was my half-way rest stop. Guys, if I was going to arrive in the middle of the night, Marion left the door open for me. She had an open door policy, literally and figuratively.
Esther Leerkes
I met Esther through Marion. She was among the team of researchers working on the project for which I was a post-doc. I went to UNCG to work with Marion and got Esther as a bonus! In fact, my first journal publication is with Esther. I watched Esther mothering and being an academic and saw that I could do that too. I watched her quickly rise through the ranks from Assistant to Associate to Full Professor and saw that I could do that too. To this day, if I need any advice, I know that I can call or email her and she will be ready with not only advice, but with questions that will help me to carefully consider whatever it is I am puzzling through/planning.
Clancy Blair
The New York University Faculty Resource Network (FRN) is a partnership with over 50 other colleges and universities to provide professional development opportunities to them. One of these opportunities is that faculty can go to NYU for a summer (Summer Scholar-in-Residence) or semester (Semester Scholar-in-Residence) to work with NYU faculty, use NYU’s library, etc. Spelman is a partner institution. Through this program, I spent two summers and one semester at NYU where I worked with Clancy.
The first time I applied to the Summer Scholar-in-Residence program, I simply listed Clancy’s name as my potential mentor. Like Marion, Clancy didn’t know me. But he agreed. That first summer, he was transitioning his lab to a new location, but they made space for me in whatever little space they had. I went a subsequent summer and in spring 2013, I spent my junior year leave at NYU. During my times at NYU, I not only worked on a publication with Clancy, but he gave me invaluable feedback on a grant proposal that ultimately helped me get it funded. Even more important to me, though, is that he always made me feel as if I was part of his lab. After my semester at NYU, I even continued to attend the lab meetings for while virtually (by phone or Skype), which really helped me keep the momentum going on the projects I was working on.
Cybele Raver
I went to NYU to work with Clancy and got Cybele as a bonus. Through my interactions with her while I was an NYU, I knew I had another cheerleader. I was able to observe how Cybele works with her graduate students and also how she balanced the various roles that she held there at the time. Cybele’s accomplishments as a female academic has always been an inspiration to me and to know that she is in my corner is just amazing.
Lisa Harlow
I met Lisa at the SMEP meeting that was held in Naples, Florida. I learned that Lisa was the PI on a grant focused on training students from underrepresented groups in quantitative methods. If that sounds similar to my INSPIRE U2 program, it’s because it is. My program is an offshoot (spin off?) of what Lisa started. Lisa has been in my corner since the day I met her. She invited me to present at the Quantitative Training for Underrepresented Groups (QTUG) meeting several times, and when funding for QTUG ended, she passed the baton on to me to seek funding to support a similar program. Just like with others, I know I can go to Lisa at any time with anything and she will give her honest opinion. More special to me, though, is that she is my cheerleader, always celebrating anything and everything that I do. If you don’t have a cheerleader mentor, find yourself one!
Lisa Dierker
Through working with Lisa Harlow, I got Lisa Dierker as a bonus. Lisa D. is the developer for the Passion Driven Statistics curriculum. Lisa D. joined with Lisa H. to help me get funding for a statistics training program. Through countless application submissions, rejections, revisions, resubmissions, etc., Lisa D. was always ready to offer feedback, tips, strategies, etc. (as did Lisa H.) Now that the project has been funded, she is involved in whatever way I need, whether large or small. (And she responds to my emails incredibly fast. Even before I’ve even processed that the email has been sent, she has responded with a detailed, thoughtful message that is just what I need to hear or know).
By the way, folks, if you submit a grant application and get a rejection, the only way to get funding is to resubmit and resubmit, etc. And have people in your corner who will give you feedback each step of the way (and people to read the grant reviews for you and break down what you really need to revise in a nice way before you actually read the reviews yourself).
Concluding Thoughts
Mentors come in many forms. Some are formally assigned to you, but others are informal. They can guide you at each stage of your career path. It’s ok for mentors to care about you, not just professionally, but personally as well. You are not just an academic. You are a whole human with academic interests as just one small part of who you are.
I see on social media almost every week someone announcing that they are “leaving academia”. Some undergraduates feel lost and clueless about pathways to take after graduation; clueless about opportunities available to them that can help them prepare for their future; no one to tell them, here is a summer program or internship opportunity-- Apply; no one to make them feel comfortable amidst daily micro (and macro) aggressions. They feel like their professors don’t really care.
Some graduate students feel burned out, overwhelmed, bogged down, sometimes in competition with their supposed advisors instead of in collaboration with them. They experience “imposter syndrome” because they have no one to make them feel like they are capable – no one to make them remember that they were accepted into the graduate program because they really do belong there. No one singing their praises. Instead, they have advisors who wait until the student’s thesis or dissertation proposals/defenses to give demoralizing feedback in front of others.
Some post-doctoral fellows feel like their post-doctoral experience is terrible and regret even doing one; they feel deprived of the opportunity to grow and instead feel stifled. Like some graduate students, they don’t have an opportunity for first-authored publications because their post-doctoral mentor will not provide them with any.
Some junior faculty are overwhelmed; they don’t have others to help guide them on what to do or not do to attain tenure. They don’t have anyone to tell them “hey you know that person at that outside institution that you really want to collaborate with? Don’t collaborate with them yet, because they could potentially be one of your outside reviewers for tenure”. They have chairs assigning them to constantly teach different preps instead of reducing the number of preps so that the junior faculty member can focus more on research (and new preps that are assigned over the winter break are just not nice). Junior faculty women are questioning whether and when to have children because they haven’t seen others before them mothering and being an academic.
Some Associate Professors are stuck in Associate Professordom, not by choice, but because somewhere along the way, they lost or never had people to tell them what to do or not do to become a Full Professor. They don’t have someone to look at their CV and say, you should do X,Y, Z to enable you to go up for Full Professor if that is what you would like to do. They don’t have someone to look at their CV and say, you haven’t gone up for Full Professor yet? You should. They are constantly asked to take on large service roles, such as chairing departments, without any consideration for the impact that might have on their ability to become Full Professor. When they were Assistant Professors, no one told them what the path towards Full Professor looks like, if they want to follow that path (and with children).
I can understand why some leave academia. But, truth be told, academia or industry, if you’re going to be successful in this life, you need mentors who uplift you.
The theme song of my life is this (yes, I have a theme song that I sing to myself, don’t you?):
“… Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name” (did you just hum da-da-da-da-daa too?)
Songwriters: Portnoy, Gary / Angelo, Judy Hart (1982)
Each of the people I described exemplify this theme for me. Because of that, they have contributed to my success. And if ever in my life the people surrounding me or the places I have been or the place I am in does/do not live up to this theme, then I know I’m in the wrong place or with the wrong people. Find yourself places and people where everybody knows your name and are always glad you came. Be someone who others are always glad to come to.
Deborah Haskins
Dr. Haskins was one of my professors at Loyola College (now Loyola University, Maryland). I actually didn’t take a class with Dr. Haskins until my senior year. Yet, she was somehow a part of my life before then. That’s because Dr. Haskins took a personal interest in her students. It wasn’t until my senior year when she took me out for a "congratulations, you’re graduating" lunch that she shared with me that the reason she made a point to take students to lunch was to ensure that we know that there is someone there who is looking out for us. Loyola is a predominantly white institution (PWI). Dr. Haskins is Black. If you know, you know. I didn’t really understand then the importance of her taking me out to lunch and all the other ways she showed me support during my years at Loyola as I do now. She had my back even though I didn’t realize how much it was needed. In one of my journal entries from my senior year, I noted “how little I will miss any students at Loyola. It’s the professors that I will miss most”.
Faith Gilroy
Dr. Gilroy was another one of my professors at Loyola. She told me about summer research programs. I was a student in her Research Methods class and one day she handed me a flyer and said here’s information about a summer research program and she told me to apply. So, I applied and was accepted to the University of South Carolina summer REU in psychology for the summer of my junior year. I didn’t know about summer research programs and were it not for Dr. Gilroy, I never would have known (at the time). I couldn’t believe I would be paid, PAID(!!!) to go learn for the summer. Now I have my own summer and other research programs where I get to pay students to learn!
I was extremely shy in college. Dr. Gilroy helped me to speak up more. One day after class, Dr. Gilroy asked me why I always seem to know the answers to the questions she asks during class, but I never raise my hand to answer. (She knew I knew the answers because whenever she asked a question in class and no one responded, she started calling on me as a go to person. Now that I’m a professor, I totally understand that complete silence after you ask students a question and how helpful it is to have just one student volunteer—and in the Zoom world, those students who turn their cameras on and nod along are a treasure). I told Dr. Gilroy that the idea of speaking in class/public makes me nervous. She said any time I’m going to class, I should go prepared with just one thing to say. During class time when the opportunity presents itself, I can raise my hand and say the one thing I had already prepared. To this day, I still use this tip, even when (especially when) I’m attending faculty meetings. Those agenda items that to some might seem like they say nothing, to me says what I can go prepared to speak about.
One day in my sophomore year, I had a writing assignment in Dr. Gilroy’s class and I took a rough draft to her for feedback before the deadline. She tore it up. I had all kinds of writing issues (for a psychology paper). After I met with her, I had to basically start from scratch to work on the “final draft”. But during my meeting, she gave me tips on how to improve my writing. She said: when you are reading, take note of how others write and if you read something that is written very well, copy it down and use the same sentence structure in your own writing. (I give this same advice to my own students now). One day in my senior year when I showed Dr. Gilroy something I had recently written, she looked at me and said something like “wow, your writing has really improved. Do you remember that first paper you showed in your sophomore year? That was a bit of a mess, huh?” And we both had a good laugh.
Dr. Gilroy is the reason why I went straight to graduate school from undergrad. I was all set to complete Loyola’s 5 year program to get myself a master’s in psychology right after undergrad and I was taking master’s classes in my senior year, along with finishing up any remaining undergrad requirements. But one day early in the fall semester of my senior year, I went to Dr. Gilroy’s office to get feedback on something and she asked me what plans I had for the future. I told her I was planning to finish the master’s and then see what comes next. She asked me if I knew that I could go straight into a PhD program without getting a master’s first. I said no, I didn’t know that. She said yes, go home and look into it and apply. And I did just that. Because of Dr. Gilroy, I somehow stumbled upon this thing called quantitative psychology and got a PhD in this thing called quantitative psych, straight out of undergrad. Now I get to tell my students that they too can get a PhD straight out of undergrad if that is that path they would like to go on.
John Horn
It’s because of Dr. Gilroy that I ended up at the University of Southern California. And where I was blessed to meet John.
As a graduate student, one of my outlets was to play in the community orchestra. Each year, I invited John to the concert and one year, he showed up! I felt like a child looking out in the audience to see if their parent would show up and he did! He did! I looked out into the audience and I saw that white hair, and he had a notepad and looked to be taking notes about something. After the concert, would you believe he said we played all his favorite songs?
One year, John invited me to his granddaughter’s dance recital. Knowing that I didn’t have a car, he picked me up, took me to the recital, took me to eat afterwards, and then dropped me back to my apartment afterwards.
Knowing that my family was on the east coast, one year, John invited me to his home for thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite thanksgiving memories. We had hors d’oeuvres outside before all going inside for a huge thanksgiving meal.
One day, when John asked me what I most wanted to do in this world, I replied that I wanted to be a good wife and mother. He asked me what I was doing to make that happen and proceeded to give me advice for about an hour instead of us talking about whatever we were supposed to be meeting about that day.
John gave me advice on who (what combination of individuals) to include/not include on my thesis/dissertation committees. He also told me language that I should never use or authors whom I should never cite. The field of intelligence is filled with racism/racists and if you’re not careful, you can continue to perpetuate the same harm other individuals caused even as you are trying to dismantle that harm.
John never criticized or critiqued me in public. He always sang my praises to others. Even during my thesis/dissertation proposal meetings, any questions he asked were meant to highlight my strengths.
John showed me how to “network”. He invited me as a guest to the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology (SMEP) meeting in Naples, Florida. That was the first conference/professional meeting I ever attended. On the night after the banquet dinner we were sitting at the table and John said I should get up and walk around and get to know some people. I told him I don’t really know how to do that. He said come with me and I’ll show you. And he did. He took me to a group that was standing around talking, showed me how to get into the conversation, got himself into the conversation, and then brought me into it as well. He introduced me to many people there. That’s how I met Lisa Harlow (and other SMEP folks who I also consider mentors). Were it not for John, I would have gone back to my hotel room after the banquet dinner and never really spoken to anyone other than a few of those at the dinner table.
John always provided me with detailed feedback on the things that I wrote. This was during a time when not everything was online. I would sometimes get feedback written between the lines of a printed-out document with more written on the backs of those same pages. Other times I would get a document with changes tracked, with changes everywhere. I would go back to what I originally wrote to see if what I said and how John had revised it was the same thing I had written originally. And it always was, but said so much better. The first time he gave me feedback, he proceeded it by saying something like “You’re a good writer. [Thank you Dr. Gilroy]. Take these comments not as criticisms of your work, but as cosmetic feedback to help improve your work”. I say the same thing to my students now when I return their work (with red everywhere).
So many more stories. If you’re wondering who John was, he’s THE John Horn of fluid and crystallized intelligence fame. That John. He was my graduate school mentor.
Jack McArdle
Through John, I heard about and eventually met Jack McArdle. I went to USC to work with John, and got Jack as a bonus. Jack was John’s postdoctoral student from 1977-1980, although the story is that Jack had the legacy of being John’s longest post-doc.
I got to really learn from Jack for the first time when I participated in his APA summer training workshop in Hawaii in 2004. Jack made complicated topics seem so easy. He made you feel like you could understand it-- that you were capable.
John and I often talked about me going to the University of Virginia for a summer or semester to work with Jack, but then Jack joined the faculty at USC in 2006. When he did, I somehow became part of his lab. He invited me to work on a paper with him. He invited me to lab events. When his post-doc, Kelly Kadlec, arrived, he told me I should meet her. (I did and we are friends to this day). Jack made me feel welcomed at all times.
From the time he came to USC, Jack took me right under his wing as if I were his own student, because I kind of already was. E.g., One year, I attended a SMEP meeting in Lake Tahoe, CA. When Jack saw I was there, he said instead of flying back to LA at the end of the meeting, I should drive back with him and his graduate students so I can get to know them better and they can get to know me. You mean I should cancel my quick flight and instead ride a long 8 hours back? No brainer. I cancelled my return ticket. (Fast forward to 2018 and I took my own students on a road trip for them to present at a conference. It was a good time had by all).
Jack continued to mentor me even after I left California. He came to give a talk at UNC Greensboro where I was doing my post-doc just because I invited him. He invited me to be a guest at a SMEP meeting in North Carolina. He invited me to attend a workshop at UVA on the Health and Retirement Study (HRS-AHEAD) data (which helped us finally publish the paper he had invited me to work on when I was USC). And so much more.
When I think of Jack, I really don’t remember the first time I met him. That’s because Jack was always a presence from the day I met John. Jack was somehow always there to give support or advice as needed. And oh the stories he would tell. Hilarious.
Marion O’Brien
I first “met” Marion when I cold emailed her to ask her to serve as my mentor on the Carolina Consortium on Human Development post-doctoral fellow application. Marion knew me from nowhere and I didn’t know her. She was someone I had found by looking through the online list of all the possible mentors who were part of the program and thought Marion’s interests best aligned with mine.
She responded very kindly to that email and worked on an application with a student whom she had never met. I didn’t get the post-doctoral fellowship. It was just as well, because I ended up delaying my graduation when John got sick.
Fast forward one year later-- I’m at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) biennial meeting stalking the job board because then I really needed a job. I happened to see that a job had been posted for a Project Manager position on a project with, guess who? Marion. I quickly emailed her and said remember me? You worked on that application with me last year that I didn’t get but I just saw the job you posted and I’m at SRCD too and would love to meet you and learn more about the job. She said she had just left to head back to North Carolina (bummer), but aside from the Project Manager position, a post-doctoral position might be available and that would be a better opportunity for me because it would provide me with more freedom. Imagine that. A post-doctoral mentor looking out for my best interest even before I was her postdoctoral student! And Marion continued to look out for me throughout my entire post-doc position and beyond.
When I said I was interested in teaching a course as part of my training, she was supportive. When I said I was invited to interview for the position I had applied for at Spelman, she was supportive. When I said I’m only doing this interview for practice and I’m not looking to leave my post-doc yet (Most of my colleagues know this story), she was supportive. When I came back and said um… if Spelman offers me the job, I’ll take it, she was supportive.
And when I eventually left the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG) for Spelman, I left with so much more than I had ever expected to receive in a post-doc. I knew I always had a place and person to call on whenever I needed. And I did. Any big decisions I made, I would consult with Marion. But my most cherished memory is the fact that when I would do long distance drives from Atlanta to Baltimore or vice versa, Marion’s house was my half-way rest stop. Guys, if I was going to arrive in the middle of the night, Marion left the door open for me. She had an open door policy, literally and figuratively.
Esther Leerkes
I met Esther through Marion. She was among the team of researchers working on the project for which I was a post-doc. I went to UNCG to work with Marion and got Esther as a bonus! In fact, my first journal publication is with Esther. I watched Esther mothering and being an academic and saw that I could do that too. I watched her quickly rise through the ranks from Assistant to Associate to Full Professor and saw that I could do that too. To this day, if I need any advice, I know that I can call or email her and she will be ready with not only advice, but with questions that will help me to carefully consider whatever it is I am puzzling through/planning.
Clancy Blair
The New York University Faculty Resource Network (FRN) is a partnership with over 50 other colleges and universities to provide professional development opportunities to them. One of these opportunities is that faculty can go to NYU for a summer (Summer Scholar-in-Residence) or semester (Semester Scholar-in-Residence) to work with NYU faculty, use NYU’s library, etc. Spelman is a partner institution. Through this program, I spent two summers and one semester at NYU where I worked with Clancy.
The first time I applied to the Summer Scholar-in-Residence program, I simply listed Clancy’s name as my potential mentor. Like Marion, Clancy didn’t know me. But he agreed. That first summer, he was transitioning his lab to a new location, but they made space for me in whatever little space they had. I went a subsequent summer and in spring 2013, I spent my junior year leave at NYU. During my times at NYU, I not only worked on a publication with Clancy, but he gave me invaluable feedback on a grant proposal that ultimately helped me get it funded. Even more important to me, though, is that he always made me feel as if I was part of his lab. After my semester at NYU, I even continued to attend the lab meetings for while virtually (by phone or Skype), which really helped me keep the momentum going on the projects I was working on.
Cybele Raver
I went to NYU to work with Clancy and got Cybele as a bonus. Through my interactions with her while I was an NYU, I knew I had another cheerleader. I was able to observe how Cybele works with her graduate students and also how she balanced the various roles that she held there at the time. Cybele’s accomplishments as a female academic has always been an inspiration to me and to know that she is in my corner is just amazing.
Lisa Harlow
I met Lisa at the SMEP meeting that was held in Naples, Florida. I learned that Lisa was the PI on a grant focused on training students from underrepresented groups in quantitative methods. If that sounds similar to my INSPIRE U2 program, it’s because it is. My program is an offshoot (spin off?) of what Lisa started. Lisa has been in my corner since the day I met her. She invited me to present at the Quantitative Training for Underrepresented Groups (QTUG) meeting several times, and when funding for QTUG ended, she passed the baton on to me to seek funding to support a similar program. Just like with others, I know I can go to Lisa at any time with anything and she will give her honest opinion. More special to me, though, is that she is my cheerleader, always celebrating anything and everything that I do. If you don’t have a cheerleader mentor, find yourself one!
Lisa Dierker
Through working with Lisa Harlow, I got Lisa Dierker as a bonus. Lisa D. is the developer for the Passion Driven Statistics curriculum. Lisa D. joined with Lisa H. to help me get funding for a statistics training program. Through countless application submissions, rejections, revisions, resubmissions, etc., Lisa D. was always ready to offer feedback, tips, strategies, etc. (as did Lisa H.) Now that the project has been funded, she is involved in whatever way I need, whether large or small. (And she responds to my emails incredibly fast. Even before I’ve even processed that the email has been sent, she has responded with a detailed, thoughtful message that is just what I need to hear or know).
By the way, folks, if you submit a grant application and get a rejection, the only way to get funding is to resubmit and resubmit, etc. And have people in your corner who will give you feedback each step of the way (and people to read the grant reviews for you and break down what you really need to revise in a nice way before you actually read the reviews yourself).
Concluding Thoughts
Mentors come in many forms. Some are formally assigned to you, but others are informal. They can guide you at each stage of your career path. It’s ok for mentors to care about you, not just professionally, but personally as well. You are not just an academic. You are a whole human with academic interests as just one small part of who you are.
I see on social media almost every week someone announcing that they are “leaving academia”. Some undergraduates feel lost and clueless about pathways to take after graduation; clueless about opportunities available to them that can help them prepare for their future; no one to tell them, here is a summer program or internship opportunity-- Apply; no one to make them feel comfortable amidst daily micro (and macro) aggressions. They feel like their professors don’t really care.
Some graduate students feel burned out, overwhelmed, bogged down, sometimes in competition with their supposed advisors instead of in collaboration with them. They experience “imposter syndrome” because they have no one to make them feel like they are capable – no one to make them remember that they were accepted into the graduate program because they really do belong there. No one singing their praises. Instead, they have advisors who wait until the student’s thesis or dissertation proposals/defenses to give demoralizing feedback in front of others.
Some post-doctoral fellows feel like their post-doctoral experience is terrible and regret even doing one; they feel deprived of the opportunity to grow and instead feel stifled. Like some graduate students, they don’t have an opportunity for first-authored publications because their post-doctoral mentor will not provide them with any.
Some junior faculty are overwhelmed; they don’t have others to help guide them on what to do or not do to attain tenure. They don’t have anyone to tell them “hey you know that person at that outside institution that you really want to collaborate with? Don’t collaborate with them yet, because they could potentially be one of your outside reviewers for tenure”. They have chairs assigning them to constantly teach different preps instead of reducing the number of preps so that the junior faculty member can focus more on research (and new preps that are assigned over the winter break are just not nice). Junior faculty women are questioning whether and when to have children because they haven’t seen others before them mothering and being an academic.
Some Associate Professors are stuck in Associate Professordom, not by choice, but because somewhere along the way, they lost or never had people to tell them what to do or not do to become a Full Professor. They don’t have someone to look at their CV and say, you should do X,Y, Z to enable you to go up for Full Professor if that is what you would like to do. They don’t have someone to look at their CV and say, you haven’t gone up for Full Professor yet? You should. They are constantly asked to take on large service roles, such as chairing departments, without any consideration for the impact that might have on their ability to become Full Professor. When they were Assistant Professors, no one told them what the path towards Full Professor looks like, if they want to follow that path (and with children).
I can understand why some leave academia. But, truth be told, academia or industry, if you’re going to be successful in this life, you need mentors who uplift you.
The theme song of my life is this (yes, I have a theme song that I sing to myself, don’t you?):
“… Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name” (did you just hum da-da-da-da-daa too?)
Songwriters: Portnoy, Gary / Angelo, Judy Hart (1982)
Each of the people I described exemplify this theme for me. Because of that, they have contributed to my success. And if ever in my life the people surrounding me or the places I have been or the place I am in does/do not live up to this theme, then I know I’m in the wrong place or with the wrong people. Find yourself places and people where everybody knows your name and are always glad you came. Be someone who others are always glad to come to.