Anthropology Has a Thriving Mentorship Program for Graduate Students

Since 2017, the anthropology department’s Alumni Mentoring program has been fostering connections between graduate students and alumni, building bridges to employment and internships. Professor and Program Director Sarah Horton is proud of the opportunities for connection and growth that the program has given the department’s graduates, and hopes other departments will be inspired to create programs of their own.

The department is so confident in the value of the program that Horton and her team produced a manual that others can use to spread the power of mentoring across the university. The backbone of the program is connecting each mentor with a specific student with similar interests, hosting four networking and workshop events per academic year, and providing helpful materials and resources to everyone in the program. A graduate assistant coordinates the events, mentor/mentee partnerships, and communicates about career opportunities, webinars, and trainings.

Lorena Cannon started as a student participant in the program, and her positive experience led to her becoming its coordinator. She remembers, “As I began my first year, I was eager to learn more about others’ experiences with completing the degree and their paths in the professional world after graduation. Meeting alumni especially helped me think about all the various directions my master’s degree could take me.”

Program Structure

The structure of the program helps reinforce its success, as students not only meet one-on-one with mentors but also come together in groups that support their academic goals and give them a forum to air anxieties. Cannon says, “Our regular group meetups were tremendously helpful as platforms to ask and clarify so many questions I had about the degree, potential job paths, the local layout for our field, and become familiar with the relevant challenges alumni experienced in the professional world.”

Students are able to see firsthand how the knowledge and skills they learn during the master’s program can be applied in professional and research settings, and the vast career opportunities available. For Cannon it became a key to her graduate school success. She notes, “As I moved through the program and got to know the participants better, I was able to reach out for specific advice and feedback which helped me apply to more internships and jobs and manage my courses with purpose.”

Network Opportunities

Not only does the program provide current students with opportunities to network and learn from the invaluable experiences of professionals in the field, but for the mentor volunteers it creates an environment that fosters professional and collaborative relationships. Students and mentors alike are able to network and share opportunities for career growth and continued learning.

Andrés Guerrero, Manager of the Overdose Prevention unit of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), finds mentoring students very rewarding. He originally reached out to the department looking for a medical anthropology student who could help state epidemiologists study Trench Fever. THE CDPHE is working to determine sources for an outbreak of Trench Fever among the homeless population in Denver (the Denver Post reported on the serious outbreak and what’s being done to study it). After mentoring student Jessica Mechtenberg for a year, Guerrero and the CDPHE went on to hire her to conduct qualitative interviews as part of the effort studying the outbreak.  

Guerrero says, “Being from a public health background, I was aware of the reliance on quantitative data and its shortcomings by the public health field as a whole. I saw an opportunity to develop relationships with anthropology professors and students to better assess the effectiveness of public health messaging and get a more intimate knowledge of cultural aspects that contribute to or prevent disease transmission.”

About his experiences mentoring students Guerrero says, “I enjoy the student’s energy and enthusiasm. Working with the students makes me feel excited about my work and gives me an opportunity to give back to the community. That is what I love about mentoring. The relationships last and continue to grow. It is an excellent way to network and build your professional experiences.”

Student Perspective

For mentee Jessica Mechtenberg, meeting Guerrero and engaging in research with the CDPHE has reinforced what made her want to study medical anthropology in the first place.  She says, “Andres has been wonderful all around. But for me, since I knew I wanted to get into public health, it was really great having a contact who works in public health but also understands medical anthropology, which is a fairly esoteric subject. He’s given me great advice about which public health classes to take that will give me practical skills in the field.”

Beyond her relationship with Guerrero, participating in the mentorship program has had many advantages for Mechtenberg. “I think it’s just been nice having a larger community of people as a whole. Everybody is doing such different things, so not only do we get to ask them questions and advice for our own career paths, but we also get ideas about where we can go,” she says. 

Growth and Success

Now in its third year, the program is so robust that the pandemic failed to slow it down. Sarah Horton says, “One of the nice things about taking the program virtual this year is that we’ve been able to reconnect with our alumni on the east coast.”

Horton encourages other departments and programs that want to create mentoring programs to dive in and use the manual her team created. “It’s been very rewarding for me personally,” says Horton.  “When we reconnect with alumni to create the brochure and organize the first ‘speed-mentoring event,’ I get to see the exciting career paths our students have blazed.”

Article submitted by Tracy Kohm, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences