Entries by Jean Rhodes

The Question Colleges Forget to Ask

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Hersch, E., Werntz, A., Deng, Y., Jasman, M., & Rhodes, J. (2026). Can I help with that? The role of goal setting in a technology-enabled peer mentoring program. Journal of Community Psychology, 54, e70115. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.70115 Jean Rhodes Most colleges ask incoming students for immunization records, housing choices, and a meal-plan preference. Far fewer ask what […]

I, Claudia: An Underrepresented Voice in AI

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By Jean Rhodes I first raised this idea with my sister, a computer scientist. What if Anthropic had named its chatbot Claudia instead of Claude? It sounds like a trivial branding choice, but names shape perception in ways we rarely notice until we notice them, and now I can’t help noticing. Every day, headlines and […]

How shared laughter can strengthen mentoring relationships

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“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” —Victor Borge by Jean Rhodes It’s August, so let’s focus on a sunny topic: laughter. August is also when I fell for someone who made me laugh out loud (literally, since there was no texting back then). We were new faculty members on a campus arts center […]

Why “Someone like me” Matters in Mentor Matching

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By Jean Rhodes How important is it for mentors and mentees to be matched on the basis of shared gender, race, major, background, or lived experience? My team and I examined this question in a university-wide peer mentoring program serving 2,072 first-year college students. Students were matched only by major, which created a rare opportunity […]

Wisdom from Professor Carola Suárez-Orozco

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Editor’s Note: A version of this appeared a few years ago but the topic seems particularly relevant these days. With this in mind, here’s a shortened version Hope it’s helpful! by Jean Rhodes Carola Suárez-Orozco, Senior Fellow at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development and the Director of the Immigrant Flourishing and […]

What the Odyssey Gets Right About Mentoring

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By Jean Rhodes Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens this week in theaters, and audiences will watch Zendaya play Athena, the shape-shifting goddess who guides young Telemachus while his father, Odysseus, is lost at sea. Athena appears to Telemachus, played by Tom Holland, in the form of Mentor. She accompanies him, encourages him, and helps him […]

Research shows lifelong influence of mentors: But there’s a catch

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 by Jean E. Rhodes It almost goes without saying that natural mentors can be enormously influential– from early childhood through adolescence and early adulthood. But, because such relationships can not be randomly assigned, it is actually a bit difficult to untangle their causes from their effects. Some pepole are “mentor magnets” and some communities are teeming […]

Implementing a professional youth mentoring program during times of crisis: Lessons from the global pandemic.

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Hanson, K. G., Satchell, A. K., Skinner, M. L., & Eddy, J. M. (2026). Implementing a professional youth mentoring program during times of crisis: Lessons from the global pandemic. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 31(1), Article 2685864. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2026.2685864 This study uses Friends of the Children (FOTC) to examine what happens when a highly structured, […]

Become a State Certified Therapeutic Mentor!

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The University of Massachusetts Boston is launching a new Community Health Worker Training with specialization in Therapeutic Mentoring program that may be of interest to mentoring practitioners, youth workers, and program leaders who are grappling with increasingly complex health and mental health needs among the young people and families they serve. Although housed at UMass […]