Two videos on Mentoring

I hope everyone is enjoying communicating with their mentor or student. The Mentoring Committee is in the process of planning events: a Spring mentoring program to match more students and mentors and a program for current members to -reconnect-. Details will be available soon.

In the meantime, here are two videos from YouTube on the mentoring process.

This first video is Business mentor Ross Vickery, from Fix My Business Now explaining what to look for when selecting a business coach or business mentor. While this video has a business focus, most of the discussion applies to any field or profession.

This next video is for the Common Ties Mentorship Program from Upper Canada College. Pretty inspirational stuff :-)

Mentor/Student matches almost ready!

Matching alumni mentors to students has been more challenging than expected, but we are almost ready to mail out the pairings.  One challenge was that student interests and chosen fields did not always match up with alumni degrees and experience. For instance, we had lots more broadcast journalism students than mentors. That said, I think we have a -great- set of participants. Every one of our alumni have great ideas, stories, advice, and more to share!

And it begins…

The promotion for the Mentoring Program, and specifically our Speed Networking event has begun! We have been to several events, both at USC and other professional organizations and have gotten great responses. We will be using this blog as a site for current information on the 07/08 CMCIS Mentoring Program and events.

The official notice for the Speed Mentoring Event:

Speed Networking Event

Who: Alumni and students of the College of Mass Communications & Information Studies who are interested in joining the Mentor Program sponsored by the CMCIS Alumni Society.

What: A speed networking event lasting an hour and a half. Each participant will chat with a mentor or mentee for 5 – 8 minutes, speaking to six other participants.

Mentors will be paired with mentees and vice versa. Refreshments will be served and participants will have a chance to sign up for the Mentor Program and choose a mentor or mentee if desired.

When: Monday, September 17th, 2007, 6:00p.m.-7:30p.m.

Where: The Vista Community Room, Suggs & Kelly Law Center, 500 Taylor St. Columbia, SC

Why: To promote the Mentor Program with a fun and exciting event. This event allows the Alumni Society to showcase their new Mentor Program and sign up both alumni and students for the program.

Limited to 20 students and 20 alumni. All participants must sign up in advance.
RSVP to Amanda Stone at astone@statelibrary.sc.gov by September 10th.

Mentoring Program Brochure

Here is a rough draft of the Mentoring Program Brochure to promote the program. We can send these to SLIS orientations in WV and VA and the ones in Columbia, put them in mail boxes for professors, put on the website, leave in the offices of both schools, etc.

Update

Katherine, Elaine and I met 7/24 to discuss our upcoming speed mentor event and other Alumni Society events. We are working on getting volunteers, updating the manual and application, and publicizing the event. If you know of any professional organizations with lots of CMCIS alumni, we would love the chance to publicize the Mentor Program.

Elaine informed Katherine and me that we will have to change the event date as there is a conflict with 9/13. We are looking to reschedule for the 11th or 12th.

I have added a section to the manual here on conversation starters between mentors and mentees. As always, please add your comments and suggestions!

Manual pages added

I have added a page with the sections of the Mentor Program manual here .  Please make comments, suggestions, additions, etc.  This manual, when finished, will be added to the Alumni Society website and distributed to the participants of the Mentor Program, both alumni mentors and student mentees.  We are also working on an online application for participants, with questions designed so that we can best match mentor pairs.