This content was published: February 2, 2024. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Student Mentoring Panel: Hearing from Those Who Have Been There
Posted by anne.grey
Presented By: Bryan Hull, PCC Faculty in English, Writing, and International Studies, and Efrain Rivas-Flores, Senior Director of College Access Programs, K-12 and Community Partnerships.
Summary
This Anderson Conference panel explores student mentoring through the experiences of people who have been both mentees and mentors. Efrain Rivas-Flores brings together former participants in PCC-connected TRIO mentoring programs to discuss how mentoring influenced their education, careers, confidence, and commitment to supporting other students.
Panelists describe being drawn to mentoring because they wanted to give back to their communities and provide the kind of guidance they had received or wished they had received as students. Several discuss their experiences as first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students and the importance of having someone who could help them navigate high school, college applications, scholarships, higher education, and career decisions.
The conversation emphasizes that effective mentoring begins with relationships. Mentors benefit from getting to know each student as an individual, including their goals, strengths, challenges, communication styles, and preferred ways of learning. Rather than focusing on deficits, panelists encourage mentors to recognize and build on students’ strengths. They also note that trust and connection take time and cannot be forced.
Mentoring does not require a formal mentor title or having all the answers. Panelists describe mentoring as listening, guiding, connecting students with resources, creating a safe place to ask questions, and walking alongside students as they make their own decisions. Mentors can also support students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own by approaching relationships with curiosity, listening to students’ experiences, and recognizing the many ways people can find points of connection.
The panel also highlights the lasting impact of mentoring on mentors themselves. Former mentors describe how the experience helped shape their career paths, strengthen their communication skills, deepen their understanding of student needs, and inspire continued work in education and student support. Many continue to mentor informally through teaching, coaching, advising, and community involvement.
Presentation outcomes
- Explore mentoring from the perspectives of people who have experienced both sides of the mentor-mentee relationship.
- Recognize the importance of trust, listening, empathy, and relationship building in effective mentoring.
- Consider how mentoring can support first-generation, low-income, underrepresented, and historically underserved students.
- Identify strategies for adapting mentoring approaches to individual students’ strengths, goals, communication styles, and needs.
- Understand that mentors do not need to share a student’s cultural background or have all the answers to build meaningful relationships.
- Explore how mentoring can strengthen student belonging, confidence, self-advocacy, and educational persistence.
- Recognize that faculty, staff, teachers, advisors, and community members can serve as mentors without holding a formal mentoring title.
- Reflect on how mentoring can positively affect the mentor’s own professional development, career direction, and connection to community.