According to the Institute for Broadening Participation, “mentoring is giving your time, attention, insights, and advice.”
Mentoring is about helping a mentee develop social capital within an environment where they have the resources and support to develop technical and intellectual capital. Simply providing resources for a mentee to accomplish a research project (i.e. develop technical/intellectual capital) is not mentoring. That is the minimum requirement to setup an appropriate learning environment. Mentoring takes place in the personal interactions with the mentee.” (The Mentoring Manual, Institute for Broadening Participation, Funded by the National Science Foundation, 2012)
Mentoring is a key component to SAME engagement efforts to maintain leadership in the A/E/C industries and ensure the country has the STEM professionals it needs to secure the nation. Mentoring also offers an excellent opportunity for leader development by the mentor and the mentee. Led by the mentoring advisory group, SAME is working to connect mentoring opportunities across the Society into one strategy.
From camp mentoring to mentoring of LDP participants to engaging with student members and young professionals at SAME national events, SAME is working to advance mentoring across the Society as shown on the graphic below.
Mentoring engages the support of 30,000 members located at 105 chapters/posts around world, 1,400 member firms, representation from every DOD engineering service, and a national office in Alexandria, VA. SAME leads collaborative efforts to maintain leadership in the A/E/C industries and ensure the country has the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) professionals it needs to engage generations to come.
The Mentor Role at SAME
shares an interest in sustaining the SAME values and goals related to STEM
requires a commitment to personal interaction1
desires to inspire and engage
utilizes the resources and support in the growth environment provided
provides feedback regarding the effectiveness of the educational opportunity
looks for opportunities to expand SAME mentoring efforts
likes to have fun!
Benefits of Mentoring
Provides opportunity to Give back
Increases social circles and contacts within a professional network
Reciprocal growth potential: increased communication and leadership skills
Develop or maintain connections to universities within your local community.
Increases your awareness of benefits of SAME
Professional skill continuity and job security for mentor’s industry
Mentoring Outcomes
Increased opportunity for development of Next Generation
Support of US world class military, government, civilian, and industry leaders for the Society and our Nation.
Recognition of individuality: strengths, roles and avenues to success.
Support team concepts including roles, responsibilities, accountability, and goals.
Stronger leadership skills through training, assignments and mentoring roles.
Foster STEM leadership for the Nation!
Tips for Mentors
Mentors don’t make the Mentee; they make the mentee better!
Believe in yourself & your own capabilities!
Be prepared:
Know your role
Listen
Set your boundaries; be clear and precise
Interact and share
Invest time into knowing your mentee: the more you know the more you can help
Maintain and respect privacy, honesty and integrity
In order to better promote mentoring across the Society, we need to know what Posts, firms, agencies, and members are doing to mentor other SAME members.
How can Posts, firms, agencies, and members benefit from your best practices and lessons learned?
Developed with support from the SAME Foundation, the LDP identifies and cultivates talent from within the SAME membership to address the nation’s grand challenges. Participants explore individual strengths and team dynamics. The program supports the development of the next generation of world class military, government, civilian, and industry leaders for the Society and our Nation. LDP is a yearlong commitment, running from Joint Engineer Training Conference (JETC) to the following JETC.
Serve as a mentor to help shepherd the professional development of these promising professionals throughout the program year. In this role, you will provide individual professional guidance and support to advance their leadership skills. Mentors are typically recruited in April of each year.
The success of the SAME camps program depends on the experience and talents contributed by the staff, cadets, college students, and other volunteers that come from our many SAME Posts and partner organizations. They fill critical mentor and staff roles. The Camps COI is always looking for volunteers to serve as mentors, squad leaders, logistical support, and other staff positions that ensures the camps continued success. Mentor and staff recruitment activities are in high gear January – June.
Academy of Fellows
Building on their historic commitment to mentoring, the Academy of Fellows (AOF) is accepting the challenge, asking our members to actively join the rank of “Mentor” by increasing their engagement in SAME mentoring activities. This is reflected in the AOF Charge:
I charge you to be a mentor. A Fellow fully understands the importance of growing future professionals and leaders and continually seeks opportunities to do so. A Fellow actively participates in SAME education, training and professional development programs, sharing experience, insight, expertise and best practices and doing so with enthusiasm. May the laurel branch with berries on your medallion remind you to remain a mentor throughout your professional career.
Fellows nurture student members by mentoring at SAME camps and post K-12 outreach events, cultivate emerging leaders by mentoring for the Leader Development Program, and ensure SAME young professionals advance in their career pursuits by co-hosting mentoring events and trainings with the Young Professionals COI at SAME national events. To learn more about the AOF’s mentoring efforts, visit the AOF webpage.
Post-level Mentoring Programs
Does your Post conduct a mentoring program? If so, the LD COI would like to make sure your program is represented as part of the LD COI mentoring strategy. If your Post has a Mentoring POC, make sure they sign on to be part of the LD COI so they can add to the body of knowledge of the community.
Sustaining Member Leader Development/Mentoring Programs
If your company is an SAME sustaining member and runs an internship, mentoring, or leader development program, please let us know so we can include you in our inventory. If they don’t, is there interest to start one? To let us know about your program, or to find out what it takes to set up mentoring program, contact Thad Tobaben at William.tobaben@kiewit.com, Sustaining Member POC on the Mentoring Advisory Group.
Agency Mentoring
Mentoring increases the effectiveness of the U.S. armed forces, ensures talent is retained and recruited, and increases diversity and learning. Each service branch invests in its own mentoring strategy. For more information about mentoring opportunities and resources, contact Amy McGeever.
Mentoring Training
Mentoring Matters No Matter Where
Presented by Colonel Ray Kimball Chief of Faculty Learning, Innovation, Collaboration, and Research and Director of the Center for Junior Officers, U.S. Military Academy at West Point
Watch Col Kimball on a prerecorded discussion on why mentoring matters. Topics include whether or not mentoring is different for enlisted, officers, and industry; the difference between coaching and mentoring; whether or not supervisors can or should be mentors; peer mentoring; and cross-gender/cross-ethnicity mentoring. This is a valuable webinar for those looking for the perfect mentor and those wishing to be true leaders with the capacity to mentor others.
