The Development and Perceived Impact of Mentor-Mentee Retreats on the Long-Term Development and Enhancement of Mentor-Mentee Relationships

This research to practice full paper reviews and implements evidence-based strategies to develop and institute the Pitt STRIVE annual mentor-mentee retreat at the University of Pittsburgh. While many institutions have successfully increased underrepresented scholar enrollment in doctoral engineering programs, evidence suggests that successful completion of degrees is not only dependent on student aptitude, but also an established community, immersion, and a sense of belonging within the institution.The overarching goal of the retreat is to have a sustained long-term, positive impact on mentor-mentee relationships. Thus, we chose to design an annual mentor-mentee retreat, to meet the following objectives: 1) encourage and promote cultural awareness among faculty and graduate students, 2) to humanize perceptions of faculty and graduate students to one another, 3) to create a community founded upon the desired success of underrepresented graduate students, and 4) to encourage deeper relationships among faculty and their graduate students, as well as other underrepresented graduate students, to promote academic growth and success. Given that our retreat was constructed based on developing an understanding of the University of Pittsburgh’s current climate, as well as evidenced practices, we hypothesized that measurable changes could be assessed, and serve as encouragement for other institutions with similar goals.Through field notes, analyzing the structures and agendas of the retreats, post-retreat feedback surveys, as well as reflective interviews with veteran mentors and mentees, we link assessment data to various structures of the retreat and offer a model for other graduate programs to adopt. We aim to inform other STEM graduate programs on how to adapt the retreat to improve faculty engagement and academic climate change to ensure underrepresented doctoral student success.

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