The resources listed here reflect the collective experience of the URI Graduate Mentoring Committee, our Outstanding Graduate Mentoring Award recipients, and leading national organizations dedicated to mentoring best practices. The URI Graduate School is committed to fostering an inclusive mentoring culture that recognizes every graduate student’s unique goals, backgrounds, and needs.

This comprehensive resource is designed to enhance the mentoring experience for both mentees and mentors at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School. Here, we emphasize the importance of Individual Development Plans (IDPs) as a tool for setting clear, actionable goals. Our resources guide mentees through self-assessment, goal setting, and mentor collaboration.

We also highlight the value of mentoring agreements to establish shared expectations and facilitate productive relationships. Our mentoring map resource helps mentees identify multiple mentors to support different aspects of their development.

Additionally, we provide frameworks and resources for navigating difficult conversations, ensuring open communication and conflict resolution in mentoring relationships. Explore our extensive range of resources tailored for mentees, mentors, and our dedicated Graduate Mentoring Committee, who are committed to fostering an enriching mentoring culture. Discover past outstanding graduate mentoring awardees and nominate exemplary mentors who have significantly contributed to student success at each spring semester.

Explore the sections below to find the tools and information that will help you build successful, supportive mentoring relationships at URI.

An Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a framework to assist a mentee with self-assessing their proficiency at a variety of skills, honing their interests, and clarifying their values to be able to set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, Time-bound) for a set period (i.e., annually). This provides clarity in what they are seeking in their mentoring relationship. The process to complete an IDP includes: (1) self-assessment, (2) writing goals and plans, (3) sharing the IDP and discussing with a mentor, (4) plan implementation, and (5) revising in the future as progress is made toward the goals. Below are some resources for developing and revisiting your IDP:

A mentoring agreement establishes shared expectations for the mentoring relationship, indicating the agreed-upon focus, including the goals, topics, and skills to be addressed. The agreement is mentee-focused but ensures the mentor is suited to assist with the mentee’s desired goals. A mentoring agreement generally consists of two sections: (1) Broad expectations not specific to a given mentee, and (2) specific details of how the mentoring relationship will work with a given mentor-mentee pair.

No single mentor can support all a mentee’s goals and needs. Having multiple mentors allows each mentor to support a specific area of development and provide a variety of perspectives. These areas of support could include substantive feedback, sponsorship, access to opportunities, accountability, professional development, emotional support, role models, intellectual community, and safe space, among others. A mentoring map helps a mentee identify different mentors who can help support various aspects of their professional development and well-being needs.

Source: NCFDD

We all come from different backgrounds and have had varied life experiences. Thus, understanding techniques for inclusive mentoring, clarifying perspectives, communicating diverse ideas, reflecting on compromise, setting boundaries, and managing conflict are essential skills for maintaining healthy and productive mentorship relationships.

The IDP and mentoring plan go a long way toward clarifying goals and expectations, however disagreements are inevitable. While the goals of the mentoring relationship are mentee-led and clearly articulated in the IDP, there may be differences in the preferred approach to addressing and reaching the goals, how their relationship is managed, if the mentee is receiving conflicting advice, or if the mentor or mentee does not keep their responsibilities to the mentoring agreement.
Communicating difficult information is a learned skill. With some frameworks to get you started and some practice, you can address challenging topics with your mentor or mentee with confidence and care.