Episode 33: Episode 33. On Mentoring and the Mentor Committee

Qualitative Conversations

In this episode, mentor, Dr. Kelly Guyotte, and, mentee, Carlson Coogler, discuss their experiences of mentorship. They specifically address mentorship within the Qualitative Research SIG. The episode begins with Carlson interviewing Kelly, but flips halfway through as Kelly begins to interview Carlson. Boden Robertson serves as the guest host, introducing the conversation. The transcript follows.
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Boden Robertson 0:11
Hello everyone and welcome to qualitative conversations, a podcast series hosted by the qualitative research special interest group of the American Educational Research Association. I'm Boden Robertson, the guest host for this episode on mentorship. And I'm very excited today to be joined by Dr. Kelly Guyotte and Carlson Coogler that have been gracious enough to lend their time and support to our QR SIG podcast episode. We'll start with introductions from our guests, and then the guests will interview each other about the QR SIG mentoring program and their experience.
Kelly Guyotte 0:41
Thank you, Bowden. It's a pleasure to be here today. My name is Kelly Guyotte. I am an associate professor of qualitative research at the University of Alabama. I am also currently serving as the chair of the mentoring committee in the QR SIG. I had the immense pleasure of also working with Carlson she is a student in our program or educational research program with a specialization in qualitative research. And I'll turn things over to you Carlson so you can introduce yourself.
Carlson Coogler 1:11
Yeah, hi, I'm Carlson Coogler at the University of Alabama, as was just said, I'm a doctoral candidate in educational research. I'm also the chair of the graduate student committee for the QR SIG. And Dr. Guy, as she mentioned, is my wonderful, lovely advisor, Professor, co teacher and mentor. So I'm very excited to do this with her. So I guess I'll go ahead and start asking me questions. So tell me about your experience with the QR segment authoring program. What do you do have done? What does it look like?
Kelly Guyotte 1:38
Yeah, I had to I looked this up recently, too, because I wasn't sure how long I'd actually been on this committee. And it's been a long time, I actually joined the inventory committee in 2016. And so I started off as a committee member, I was vice chair of the committee in 2018. And then since 2019, I've been serving as chair of the mentoring committee. And so during that time, I have done a lot of things behind the scenes. So that's mostly where my my participation and support has been directed. So in terms of planning and organizing our various initiatives, I have also stepped in as needed to serve as a mentor for things such as the proposal Forum, which I think we're going to talk a little bit about, as well as the mentoring session. But really, a lot of the work that I've done has been helping to make sure these initiatives happen. And now as a chair, really supporting the committee members to make sure that we can continue to support our QR SIG membership. And I'm actually, this is gonna sound silly, but I'm looking forward to rolling off his chair because one thing that I really want to do and look forward to do is become more of a mentor in the QR SIG. So it's been really fun to plan and to be behind the scenes, but I really value mentorship. And so I'm looking forward to being able to to put myself out there a little bit more in support our various members who are seeking participation in our in our various initiatives.
Carlson Coogler 3:09
That's awesome. Yeah. So what does the QR SIG mentoring do? What kind of help or assistance is available for students or early for faculty?
Kelly Guyotte 3:19
Yeah, it's a really good question. We have three primary initiatives that we undertake as part of the QR SIG. So our first one is called proposal forum and proposal forum happens before AERA submissions are due every year proposal Forum is an opportunity for graduate students, for postdocs and for early career faculty who are submitting to AERA. Maybe for the first time or the second time, who would like to get some feedback on their proposals, and most usually send an email out sometime in mid May, early June or something like that. And we'll ask for folks who want to participate in that, then we will seek mentors that will be willing to read those proposals. And then we do some matching that there's a matching that happens. And then the folks who are seeking feedback will submit their proposals, which will be read by the mentors. And then the idea is that we're really helping these early career and emerging scholars to get great feedback and to really submit high quality submissions that have a high likelihood of getting accepted into the QR SIG program. Our second initiative is the mentoring session. And this is one that I think is probably is one of our more popular ones. And a lot of people have heard of it because it actually shows up on the AERA program. This one is geared toward graduate students and postdocs and I think you're actually participating this year and that right person,
Carlson Coogler 4:49
yes, I am really excited about it.
Kelly Guyotte 4:51
Great. The mentoring session. Like I said, it happens during the AI era annual meeting. This is an opportunity for folks to get together. Thankfully, we're gonna be back face to face this year, which we're really excited about. We ran it virtually last year. And it actually ended up being really lovely in a virtual setting as well. But typically what happens is folks come together, they get an opportunity to, to chat with one another to talk a little bit about what we call, quote unquote, areas of stuckness. So where are folks stuck methodologically. And so we invite senior scholars and folks who have experienced this type of thing and have wisdom that they can share, and to serve as support for these folks during the session that actually happens during the eight year a meeting. And then the final initiative is our office hours initiative. And so we've actually recently opened this up so that it caters to a lot of different types of scholars. So we have it open toward graduate students. So all of our initiatives are open to graduate students, postdocs, and faculty at any stage. So the idea here is that anyone who feels like they need mentorship can participate in this program. And if you're part of the QR SIG, you may have seen the emails have gone out quite recently on this one. This used to be a face to face meeting that happened at a era. But we've since moved that to be more virtual, although people who are attending AERA, of course, could meet face to face. But these are typically one on one meetings and they're you know, about half an hour in length, we call office hours because if your graduates, your professors office, during office hours, you're having a short one on one meeting, getting some really good focused feedback from them. And then sometimes these relationships continue to evolve, and people stay connected after that. And then sometimes it's a one off thing. But regardless, it's a great way to get some feedback on things that are going on with you methodologically.
Carlson Coogler 6:44
That's awesome. I have experienced or am going to be experiencing all three of those. So it's nice to hear it described like that you describe some of this in your last answer. But is there anything you'd like to add about the process about like how mentors or mentees sign up?
Kelly Guyotte 6:59
Yeah, we always submit our calls through the QR SIG listserv. And so if you're interested in participating in any of our initiatives, become a member of the QR SIG. And that way you can get these emails and get information about all of our initiatives. You may also have professors or colleagues who are members, and they may be willing to pass along the information to you. But the QR SIG is typically how we share that information our mentees matched to mentors. That is also a really good question. So I am just one of a team. We have a big committee of folks that work together on all of these initiatives. And they work really hard on the matching part. So typically, we try to design our forms in our surveys that we send out so that we can get information that will be helpful for us to match our mentees and our mentors in a way that's meaningful. So for instance, we may ask for things like methodological areas of interest areas that you're working in. Or we may ask things to the nature of theory, what are the theories that that you're you're working with. And then oftentimes, we have started to ask for specific mentors that folks would like to work with. And so we take all of these suggestions and all of this information. And we just have really smart people that are dedicated to making sure that these pairs and these collaborations are meaningful and thoughtfully designed and constructed. A lot of the behind the scenes work that we do as a committee is the matching that really took tends to take a lot of our time. And we just really try to make sure that people are paired with the types of folks that they're wanting, and that we allow, or we cultivate methodological and theoretical fit.
Carlson Coogler 8:46
Definitely experienced that methodological and theoretical fit and how I've been matched. I really appreciate that. What are the or what does a typical session meeting meet up between mentor and mentee look alike?
Kelly Guyotte 8:57
So that's that depends. And I mentioned all three of our initiatives. And I think I may have talked a little bit about this, but just to be really concise and straightforward with your answer with a proposal forum. The connection is purely through email. It's all virtual. They're encouraged if they want to, they could meet up and do a zoom or something like that. But typically, it's just the mentee emails. The proposal to the mentor reviews, it emails back feedback. So it's typically email and asynchronous. The mentoring session, as I mentioned, happens at the eight year annual meeting. And so during that, typically what we do is we do some speed dating type activities. We'll then divide into to small groups and big groups, and it becomes highly dialogic, and then office hours. Like I said, it can happen either through the eight year annual meeting, or it can be virtual, and it's up to half an hour for one on one or group sessions. And typically, the mentee will come in with some very specific questions. some very specific topics that they want to discuss. And then again, it becomes very collaborative and dialogue.
Carlson Coogler 10:06
What are the future directions for the mentor,
Kelly Guyotte 10:09
this is actually my last year as the chair, but I will stay on the committee. So you can't they can't get rid of me too easily here. What I would love to see is I would love to see us continuing to find ways to support all of the membership of the QR SIG through mentoring is something that I would really love to see our committee take off.
Carlson Coogler 10:31
That's, that sounds really important to me. I think that's really awesome. And you're doing such a great job right now with graduate students and our faculty. So I'm excited to see that develop, what else would you like to share about the room that didn't get covered?
Kelly Guyotte 10:45
I'll just elaborate a little bit, we have a really active and robust committee of folks, some of the people on this committee have been part of the group almost as long or as long as I have. So we have people that have been servies for four or fives years. And so these folks are just really committed to mentorship and really value mentorship. When you see those emails that come out, just know that there's this group that that's behind them, and they're working really hard. Everything we do really takes team effort. And we have a distinct group of wonderful scholars behind it. They're making sure that things happen and are that we're doing what we can to truly support those, this SIG that feels they need mentorship. So I have some questions for you, Carlson, I know that you mentioned as well earlier that you are experiencing some mentorship by the QR SIG. Committee, and then the mentoring committee. So can you tell me a little bit about your previous experiences? As you see it?
Carlson Coogler 11:54
Yeah, yeah. So this will be my third year of participating in in some way or another within the mentoring initiatives. So in 2020, I did an adapted version of the mentoring session that was virtual because the pandemic only was a sickness. And it was like via Flipgrid. It was really neat the way they all set it up. And I was the person who responded to my my video was on Dr. Wolgemuth. And then in 2021, I had did the office hours and ARA proposal, forum mentoring, and I happen to be paired with the same person two times. And that was Dr. Nordstrom. And then in 2022, I have the office hours and mentoring are coming up. And I'm really excited to see how that goes.
Kelly Guyotte 12:38
So thinking back about your experiences as a mentee, what do you think has gone particularly? Well, you seem you speak very positively of your experience. I'd love for you to elaborate a little bit.
Carlson Coogler 12:51
Yeah, there's really a lot that has gone very well. I think matching has been really excellent that y'all have been very thoughtful. And you have done a really great job of communicating what it's supposed to look like and how power how expectations etc. And the matching in the in the communication has been really nice. The mentors that I've had Dr. Wolegmuth, Dr. Nordstrom have been linked very thoughtful. And giving, for example, like Dr. Wolgemuth answered my my practical side of my moment of stuckness, but also weighed out and problematize. And I'm such an in my thinking. And that's been really helpful as I've like move forward and thinking about the relationships between this phonologies methodologies, disciplines, etc. It's like a seed that stayed with me. And very similarly, Dr. Nordstrom gave me really great and very practical feedback on my proposal. Like, for example, she's I, I should know, by the end of the first paragraph what your proposal was about. And she didn't, because I needed to make it more clear. And so that was very helpful. But then also, she gave me some suggestions for about people to read as I was struggling with the ideas. And that was really helpful. And actually it thinking through what she provided has resulted in my first single author publication, which is really exciting. So I'm very thankful for that. So I guess what I'd say is that what went well was I guess it resulted from coming with questions of stuckness and being open to how the professor's would answer it. And they did a really good job. And because I also did that with Office Hours too, and then asking questions that allowed us to move back and forth between the practical and the more like conceptual.
Kelly Guyotte 14:29
That's really exciting to hear that you had a publication come out of your mentoring committee interactions. Congratulations.
Carlson Coogler 14:37
Yeah, thank you and also out of your class as well. It's been a combination of all kinds of mentoring, but it would not have happened without these all these intersections. So yeah, I'm thankful for the opportunities.
Kelly Guyotte 14:47
That's fantastic. So since you're you're now a very experienced mentee, what do you what would you want to share to other folks who are listening who may be thinking about Becoming a mentee and one of these initiatives, what would you suggest that they know before signing up and or meeting with their mentor? How might they prepare?
Carlson Coogler 15:07
Do I think for sure, be engaged, come with questions, make notes reflect on the process afterward. And as I've said before, I think it's important to ask about practical and idea oriented stuff, to not be one one camp there. But also, I think something that's been really helpful for me is realizing this isn't a performance. Like I'm not worried, like to try not to be worried about impressing the other person, like, when it's our professor, a lot of times, we're supposed to we're student, we're expressing our knowledge about stuckness, for example, it can still be productive, not knowing can be productive. And so it's okay that you don't know the answers to your questions. That's why you're seeking mentorship.
Kelly Guyotte 15:49
Yes, that's excellent advice. I hope that hope that folks heard that, because it is it's sometimes it feels like even to get mentorship, we have to have some answers, but really, that stuckness and those tensions and those struggles can be really productive, even if they're unresolved by the end of an interaction, sometimes it's those interactions can linger with us and affect in really profound ways.
Carlson Coogler 16:13
Yes, I would say that all of mine had been unresolved still, or it's been pushing me in a different direction that a way to approach my question of stuckness from a different angle that's ultimately been really helpful in helping me work out where I am. That's not been fully resolved. So
Kelly Guyotte 16:28
Yeah, you mentioned this in your introduction, but you are this year, you're serving on the QR SIG graduate student committee, and I believe you're the chair of that committee. Is that correct?
Carlson Coogler 16:38
Yes, that's correct.
Kelly Guyotte 16:39
Can you tell me a little bit about your role?
Carlson Coogler 16:42
Yeah, this is my second year on the committee, my first year of being chair. So basically, what I do similar to what you were talking about on the being on the back end, is that I do a lot of organizing and supporting and facilitating, and basically, I think of it as being between two relation, two sets of relations, one between the larger grad student community, and then the grad student committee, and then between the grad student committee and an exec committee for the QR SIG. So we have three different initiatives, the writing, breathing, and our newest one, which is a dissertation Group, kind of job oriented. And so each of the members facilitate those groups like they use a few of them facilitate each of the groups together. And then we are, we've had a speaker event for this first time, which was really awesome. And we're hoping to do that similar, there's gonna be a podcast coming out about that. And then we have a meet and greet planned for AERA. So the organizing, supporting and facilitating of those things are what I do as the Chair, I wish
Kelly Guyotte 17:42
that I could have taken advantage of that when I was a graduate student. I think that sounds really incredible. And it seems like folks are really active and wanting to be involved.
Carlson Coogler 17:51
Yes, they are in the committee. It's just absolutely wonderful. I really just I also like, help lead one of the groups, but it is definitely not a one person thing like we are a team and they are so active, involved and dedicated and creating spaces for community for graduate students. And so it's been really a pleasure to get to work with them
Kelly Guyotte 18:10
in thinking about the because our topic today is about mentorship. How do you see your graduate student committee also taking the practice of mentorship? Yeah, so
Carlson Coogler 18:21
I think about the book that you and Dr. Wolgemuth edited that philosophical mentoring and qualitative research, there was this like general push to disrupt the hierarchical relationship between my mentor and mentee and to think about mentoring. And it's happening, even not even just between not even just between people that think it was Coker at all, they had the chapter where it was more than human mentors. And but so I guess as I'm answering this, I think our experience of mentorship is mostly happening not in the formal professor to student mentor mentee codified relationship. It's really like students, a student in our community groups. And I think that's really important, and something that graduate students maybe don't, or maybe not as aware of that it's not just your professors, especially if they're new graduate students who are or can be in mentoring relationships with you that you can learn a lot from other graduate students. So yeah, I think that is where we do most of our mentorship experiencing experiences are happening student to student,
Kelly Guyotte 19:19
I love hearing you say that because it makes me think of over the years that I've been in the on the mentoring committee, I've had a lot of faculty that have communicated how much they really enjoy serving as a mentor, how much they enjoy participating in mentoring session, because they feel like they learned so much and they take away so much from those in those engagements. And so I think a lot of times students have a tendency or grad students have a tendency to think that like they're the ones getting and receiving all have this wonderful knowledge, but really, our mentors do as well and it becomes very reciprocal. So I just loved hearing you talk about that breaking down the hierarchy and thinking about mentorship in new and different ways. So, yes, as a current doctoral student, doctoral candidate, what advice do you have for other current graduate students? And maybe thinking about that under the under the topic of mentorship? How would you want to mentor them to move forward and learn?
Carlson Coogler 20:17
Yeah, I think my main advice, especially in relation to this topic would be to really cultivate relationships in various types of relationships, mentoring relationships, like with professors at your school elsewhere and conferences, talk to people after you listen to their presentations. If you have questions or ideas even email someone after you read the article, if you have a question or thought and you want to share, just reach out, I think because a lot of us are a lot of us are in our these roles that we're in and as teachers and researchers, because these relationships are important to us and having communicating about ideas and having an opportunity to mentor and be mentored and for it to be reciprocal, like you said, so I think trying to cultivate in as many places as you can opportunities that are formal and informal for mentoring apply to be on committees like I've learned a lot about being a scholar doing qualitative inquiry as a result of being on the grad committee and learning from other graduates. And then also because I'm the chair of the exec committee, so I've heard a lot it's helped me understand and imagine what it looks like to be a professor and to be on a committee at ARA and like what that looks like. And then I think, like you said, the reciprocal aspect I can work in this weird liminal spot. We're still students, though soon, hopefully they have doctorates and be professors. And so we're learning how to be a scholars. And I think that there's like this slide that's always happening between like mentor and mentee, like we're always have. And so I think sharing and learning with humility, knowing that you do have something to share, but that you also always have something received that you're both always mentor mentee, I think is important. And it's relationships. Yeah, I guess that's the advice I would offer.
Kelly Guyotte 21:56
I love that. And I think just having the opportunity to work with you as your as your one of your professors, and we're getting to co teach and we could get into right together, I know that I have learned a tremendous amount from working with you and reading with you and thinking with you. For me, that reciprocity is something that is really fulfilling and sustaining. So I appreciate you very much, Carlson.
Carlson Coogler 22:21
I appreciate you too. And I 100% agree it's a joy. It's a joy to be in these relationships with you. Thank you.
Boden Robertson 22:28
And I appreciate both of you joining us today for this episode. And I think that about wraps up today's episode on mentorship. I know that I've learned a lot and I really hope that our listeners have to, I'll be completely honest, I'm definitely sold on the mentor program and I will be and I will be signing up so you've you've at least convinced me congrat congratulations. So just to close out again to thank Dr. Kelly Guyotte and Carlson Coogler for taking the time out of their busy schedules to join us for today's episode. And until next time. Thanks for joining us for qualitative conversations.