The Beach Mentor Program
Advancing Inclusive Mentoring (AIM) was developed at California State University, Long Beach as part of the National Institute of Health's (NIH) Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative to provide a variety of engaging training resources for faculty and staff at CSULB to promote student success through positive and inclusive mentoring. Because student involvement in high-impact practices such as internships, service learning, and research, scholarly, and creative activities boost student success, particularly when associated with strong mentorship, learning the best practices for mentoring is a critical component of facilitating student success.
Called the “Beach Mentor Program” at CSULB, this program works towards that goal by providing a learning experience where mentors refresh and reaffirm inclusive mentoring practices. The program includes videos featuring faculty and staff members from around the campus who share tips and ideas on best practices in mentoring, along with re-enactments (actors and animation scenes) of student/professor scenarios that are based on real mentoring stories collected from the CSULB campus community. The AIM/Beach Mentor Program shares key mentoring practices that, when used by CSULB faculty and staff members, can help students on our campus feel welcomed, empowered, supported- and geared for success!
The Beach Mentor modules are structured to meet key learning outcomes and include:
- Communicating with your Mentee
- Inclusive Mentoring; Cultivating Mentee Growth & Development
- Facilitating Mentee Health & Wellbeing
- Mentee-Centered Mentoring
- Mentoring Toolbox.
These modules not only cover critical topics such as social justice mentoring and issues of equity, combating discrimination, and culturally aware mentoring, but they also help to define the broad role(s) of a mentor. In addition to the videos, Beach Mentor's "Top Tips" handouts are available for each episode.
The Beach Mentor Community Includes:
- Access to all six modules of the Beach Mentor Online Program.
- Invitation to six facilitated discussion group sessions with Beach Mentor Community members.
With the completion of all six self-paced, Beach Mentor modules/quizzes, and participation in all six facilitated discussion sessions, participants receive:
- A certificate of completion for mentor training (useful for grant proposals, demonstration of professional development).
- A certificate of completion for the facilitated discussion sessions of the Beach Mentor Community.
- ‘Beach Mentor’ status (special consideration for selected Office of Research and Economic Development (ORED) award applications).
- A Beach Mentor door decal.
- A Beach Mentor lapel pin.
- Invitations to Beach Mentor Community events.
