In higher education and the workplace, whether you know it or not, you are likely part of multiple mentoring relationships. Both as mentor and mentee, we are all constantly exchanging information and cultural knowledge with colleagues, students, and staff.
These relationships are critical to developing successful career and educational pathways, yet mentoring someone (or being mentored) comes with a unique set of challenges that few are trained on. That's why the Center for Internship, Mentoring, and Research (CIMR) and the Graduate School at Portland State University (PSU), with support from the university's BUILD EXITO funding, teamed up to offer the Mentoring Academy.
The academy is really a parallel set of training programs: One helps faculty be better mentors to their students, and another, called Mentoring Up, helps students develop the knowledge and skills to proactively and effectively address these challenges and navigate their mentoring relationships and career progression.
Drawing on a nationally recognized program, the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER), the PSU Mentoring Academy uses evidence-based tools and curriculum to help students and faculty improve their communication with each other.
"No matter how good we are at something, there's always an opportunity for improvement. This is about supporting people to do difficult work better," said Mark Woods, Associate Dean of the Graduate School. "It's not about telling people how to do it, or saying you have to do things a certain way. It's about giving people resources and skills."
What Does The Mentoring Academy Offer?
The academy consists of free in-person training modules and a collection of resources. The structure is modeled after the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU)'s Mentorship Academy, which is also based on CIMER curricula. After the training, participants have ongoing access to the materials to help them apply what they've learned.
Karla Horgan Arévalo, a Counselor and Educator who oversees the Mentoring Academy, sees it as a way to create empowering relationships.
"Managing the mentoring academy gives me the opportunity to support others, doing meaningful work with students in a way that's responsible and culturally responsive," Horgan Arévalo said. In setting up PSU's mentoring academy, Horgan Arévalo worked closely with Brenda Martinez, OHSU's Mentorship Specialist.
"I think the biggest value is providing community for both mentors and mentees to learn how to be effective in a mentoring relationship. There's a lot of harm that can be done, if it's not done correctly. Our trainings allow folks to learn evidence-based tools, resources, and frameworks that they can apply. So instead of struggling on your own, you can actually put it in practice in community with your peers, and then walk away after the training with a lot of tools that you can implement," Martinez said.
Mentor and Mentee: Both Gain Benefits
One mentor/mentee pair, Hannah Sean Ellefritz and Dara Shifrer of the PSU Sociology program, both attended the academy in 2024/25.
Ellefritz is a PhD student and research assistant studying pedagogy, and Shifrer, an associate professor with research interests in education inequality, is her faculty advisor.
"I think this should be strongly encouraged for anyone who is starting a graduate program," Ellefritz said.
One main takeaway was like, wow, this is very helpful, and it would have been even more helpful earlier on in my graduate program.
Although Ellefritz already felt she had a good relationship with her advisor, she appreciated how the training helped more clearly define the scaffolding of that relationship. She also found value in hearing from other students about their relationships with their own mentors. One of the clearest benefits, for Ellefritz, was a training exercise that helped students articulate their needs, identifying what they needed that they weren't getting. For Ellefritz, it was a clearer mental image of what comes after graduation.
"So now that I do have guidance about what I'm doing beyond this, it makes me more excited to make progress in my program and move along," Ellefritz said. "I didn't feel like there was a whole lot of improvement that needed to be made, but I did feel like there was somewhat of an unpinpointable gap that the Mentoring Academy helped me pinpoint."
Shifrer echoed Ellefritz's sentiment that everyone should be encouraged to attend. The training was so useful, she said, yet many faculty aren't aware how they could benefit from it.
"It really changed how I interact with the students. I was a K-12 teacher, and they teach you how to interact with students. But I found the academy very valuable because mentoring is different from teaching and I'd never been trained in mentoring. This training was very focused on that distinct way of interacting with people," Shifrer said.
To learn more about the Mentoring Academy, explore the PSU Center for Internship, Mentoring, and Research (CIMR).