HGSE Hosts Cross-University Collaborative Mentoring Conference

"I'll give you a slightly different take on that question," says Professor Bob Selman, leaning forward over his lunch in the sunny garden-level conference center of Gutman Library. "One strategy is to identify a gap in knowledge and fill that gap. That's a common strategy, maybe the most common. But you have to know...."

He talks for few more minutes as six pairs of eyes follow him and six young heads nod in agreement. What he's saying is important, but in this setting, what matters even more is that he's giving the questioner a second opinion.

Selman is one of nearly 20 professors participating in the 10th Annual Cross-University Collaborative Mentoring Conference, hosted for the first time this year by Harvard on June 3 and 4 at the Ed School. Though the conference is subtitled "Advancing Translational Approaches in Developmental Research: Linking Theory, Practice, and Policy," the meeting is really all about second opinions, different perspectives, broadening horizons, and building networks.

"I had to push a few of my friends to come," says doctoral candidate Joy Landwehr, Ed.M.'06, this year's student cochair, with Mariah Contreras of Tufts. "People were like, 'Oh, it's another conference.' I said, 'It's not another conference. This is a different breed of conference.'"

Its difference is rooted in its beginnings. Around 1990, the Administration for Children and Families decided it would commit substantial funds to hold a biennial conference promoting research for the Head Start Program, and it recruited as organizers John Fantuzzo, professor of human relations at University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education; Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, a professor of applied psychology at New York University's Steinhardt School; and Faith Lamb-Parker, an assistant clinical professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia.

"It was a good start," says Fantuzzo, "but after awhile the three of us said, 'We really need to do much more.' We wanted to create for our students a rich collaborative network so they could connect with other like-minded and like-talented students and also begin to create a network of colleagues at other universities."

So in 2000, the three professors began the Cross-University Conference, attracting, that year, about 15 students and five or six faculty from their three schools. The conference, according to Fantuzzo, had three mandates. First, it was totally student-oriented: "The students are the center of the event," he says. "They plan it, they work together, they direct it, and they give the presentations." Second, it was relatively small so it could be "richly supported" by faculty participation. And finally, it was sustainable. "We wanted to make sure there was little or no cost for students to attend the conference." To lessen its financial impact, the event is one day only and is hosted by a school somewhere in the northeast corridor.

"I am a long-distance runner," Fantuzzo says. "I prefer it to sprinting because I like to make sure things I do can last."

This year's conference, with about 70 attendees from seven schools, showed just how lasting the event's impact has been. About a half-dozen of the original student cohort -- who are now tenured faculty -- have stayed involved since the beginning; Christine McWayne, who spoke at Friday's lunchtime faculty panel, is among them. "Those early conferences will always be one of the most defining and rewarding experiences of my graduate training at UPenn," says McWayne, director of early childhood education in Tufts' department of child development. "It exposed me to faculty mentors at other universities that I probably wouldn't otherwise have connected with in such an intimate way."

Not every one of the students at this year's conference had a mentor with them, but every student left with at least one mentor of sorts. Conference events were planned to maximize students' interaction not only with their peers from other schools, but also with professors whose interests align with theirs but who might not otherwise be accessible.

"These are people with big names," says Landwehr. "They get a million requests. People are always sending them e-mails, wanting to know about their work. This conference is about getting your foot in the door, getting more on their radar than someone out of the blue who just asks them a question. I've tried e-mailing people at other universities about my work and not gotten responses. Anyone from this conference, though, I've had them responding at night, on weekends, even though I know they're super busy."

This is a conference people make time for. Joshua Brown, an assistant professor in Fordham's psychology department, changed the day of his talk at another major conference so he could attend Friday's sessions. Bob Selman took the red-eye in from California on Thursday night. One student arrived with a literally red eye, having had major surgery the day before.

Why do they do it?

For professors, "it takes time away from other things that get you more tangible benefits, that's for sure," says Michael Nakkula, Ed.M.'97, Ed.D.'93, a practice professor in the division of applied psychology at Penn and former director of HGSE's Risk and Prevention Program. "But, if you're a professor who's more than purely a researcher, but is also a teacher who cares about your students, this sort of thing matters. Doctoral students invest a lot of time and money. They place a lot of faith in us, and if we don't provide support I don't think we're doing our jobs, plain and simple."

At his faculty presentation, Nakkula spoke about the importance of mentors in his own career. "I knew early on in my doctoral work that students who chose not to use the apprenticeship model, who chose instead to be very independent, were missing opportunities," he says. One of his mentors as he did his graduate work at the Ed School was Bob Selman; another was the late Perry London, who taught at Harvard before moving on to Rutgers in 1989. Both allowed him to be the first author on journal papers he'd written.

"There's a certain iterative process to this," Selman says. "In other words, mentoring is important across all scientific disciplines, but particularly in one that's studying things like mentoring and other ways to promote healthy human development."

For the students, it quickly becomes obvious why it's important to make time for this conference. "I've had students who were terrified to do this," Selman says, in part because of the student-led presentation sessions that are the centerpiece of every year's program. "This is where mentoring becomes parenting. I just tell them they have to do it. I don't care how miserable they're going to be. And they always come back and want to go again on their own." One of his mentees who initially needed convincing, in fact, eventually helped to facilitate this year's conference.

Not only do students whose work is still in progress get feedback from a fresh research perspective, but often, they also get more personal advice. "Two years ago I had two female mentors at my table," says Landwehr. "One had recently had a child and I said, 'How is that?' I could ask my own advisor, Bob Selman, but he's a male and it's just different." Fantuzzo agrees. "I want my student who's doing research with African-American women to talk to a colleague who's an African-American woman," he says.

In such situations, the advice is personal but the relationship, not too much so -- which can provide the perfect foil for students at a time in their lives when the questions seem endless. "It's like your sister or your parent," Landwehr says. "Sometimes when you're too close to someone you can't be objective." For example, the mentors students meet at this conference often offer to read their applications when it comes time to look for a job, or ask pointed questions to help them whittle their big-topic dissertation to a more manageable, bite-size piece. "It's easier for faculty who aren't living with a student every day," says Fantuzzo, "to say, 'Are you serious? How many decades is that going to take you?'"