Entries by Jean Rhodes

From “just-in-case” to “just-in-time” mentor training

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By Jean Rhodes One of my favorite old Saturday Night Live skits was the Five-Minute University. The idea is that most of college courses fill students with a ton of information,  just-in-case it might be helpful some day.  In the skit, Father Guido’s Five-Minute University aimed to teach students in five minutes “what the average […]

Beyond the Shark Tank: How mentors can foster youth entrepreneurship

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By Jean Rhodes While shows like Shark Tank have popularized entrepreneurship in recent years, researchers have been curious about how to foster the next generation of Mark Zuckerbergs and Sara Blakelys. Enter the Young Entrepreneurs Study (YES), a research project led by prominenent developmental psychologists Richard Lerner and William Damon. This work on nurturing the […]

MENTOR welcomes Fred T. Whitted Jr., the New Director of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives

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By: MENTOR MENTOR Staff Could you introduce yourself and include a little about your background? I am Fred T. Whitted Jr. and I am the new Director of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at MENTOR. I have 7+ years of progressive experience in outreach, training, and program development. I gained these professional opportunities by working within […]

Guest editorial: Race talk in youth mentoring relationships

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By So Jung Lee, Bernadette Sánchez, Carla Herrera, Lidia Monjaras-Gaytan, David L. Dubois, & Amy J. Anderson An important part of growing up in the U.S. as adolescents of color is the verbal and nonverbal messages they receive about their race/ethnicity. This is called, “ethnic-racial socialization.” These messages are typically communicated by parents to their […]

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you anxious: How white mentors’ attitudes affect relationships

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Simpson, S. B., Hsu, T., & Raposa, E. B. (2023). Trajectories and impact of White mentors’ beliefs about racial and ethnic discrimination in a formal youth mentoring program. American Journal of Community Psychology, 71(3-4), 465-479. A recent study by Simpson et al. (2023) provides important insights into how White mentors’ beliefs about racial and ethnic […]

All you need is “deep level” similarity: Predictors of quality mentoring matches

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By Jean Rhodes Conventional wisdom has long emphasized the importance of matching mentors and mentees based on surface-level characteristics like gender, race, and ethnicity. The assumption has been that sharing these demographic similarities would lead to more comfort, understanding, and ultimately, higher quality mentoring. Yet a growing body of research is challenging this view and […]

Psychologists call for a paradigm shift in mental health: Implications for mentoring programs

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In a recent article in American Psychologist, Dodge et al. (2024) present a call to action for transforming mental health research  and practice to focus on population-level impact. The authors argue convincingly that the field must move beyond its traditional individual-level focus to become accountable for improving mental health outcomes across entire populations. This commentary […]

APA releases important guidelines on race and ethnicity in psychology: Implications for mentoring

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In 2019, the American Psychological Association (APA) published comprehensive guidelines on addressing issues of race and ethnicity in all areas of psychological practice (APA Task Force on Race and Ethnicity Guidelines in Psychology). This seminal report provides an extensive review of theoretical and empirical literature to inform psychologists on promoting racial and ethnocultural responsiveness and […]

New study explores how mentors can help mentees explore their identity

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Peifer, J. S., Lawrence, E. C., Williams, J. L., & Leyton-Armakan, J. (2016). The culture of mentoring: Ethnocultural empathy and ethnic identity in mentoring for minority girls. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 22(3), 440-6. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000078 Introduction Many mentoring programs involve cross-cultural matches between majority mentors and minority mentees. Although many researchers and practitioners have […]