Introduction to Equity Minded Mentoring Workshop

Research has shown that faculty interactions with students in the classroom, laboratory, and advising meetings influence students’ professional socialization, academic performance, and persistence in higher education. In this workshop, faculty will reflect on their current advising and mentoring practice and learn how to develop equity-minded mentoring relationships. Equity-minded mentors 1) take personal and institutional responsibility for the success of their graduate students, 2) are attentive to the social and historical context of graduate education and how exclusionary practices shape the experiences of doctoral students who are from minoritized groups, and 3) affirm the social identities of emerging scholars in ways that facilitate their academic, professional, and social development. Activities in this workshop will develop competencies in these areas and will help faculty develop equity-minded mentoring agreements as a tool that establishes shared expectations between mentors and mentees.

Facilitator Bios

Dr. Steve Desir is an Assistant Research Professor in the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the USC Rossier School of Education. His research interests include racial equity in college admissions, organizational change, and the use of theory-based psychological interventions to facilitate behavioral change. More specifically, Steve is interested in whether insights from social psychology, sociology, and behavioral economics can be used to improve educational experiences for minoritized groups. Steve earned his doctoral degree in Higher Education from USC, and a master’s degree in Education Policy and Management from Harvard. Prior to his studies at USC and HGSE, Steve completed his master’s degree in secondary education from NYU, and earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics and Political Science at Penn State. 

Dr. Annie Wofford is  an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies at Florida State University. Her research interests center on structural inequities within graduate education, and she focuses on the development of equity-minded structures of support in STEM students’ trajectories to and through graduate school. More specifically, she has recently explored how STEM doctoral students develop as mentors, how doctoral students’ mentoring practices are informed by their social identities and experiences, and how departmental cultures guide mentoring structures in STEM through empirical research and a research-practice partnership funded by the Inclusive Graduate Education Network. Wofford has been a research affiliate for several NSF-funded projects about equity in STEM and graduate school trajectories, including projects focused on equity in collegiate computing, Ph.D. pathways for upward transfer computing students, and doctoral students’ experiences in biological sciences. Wofford earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change from the University of California, Los Angeles, a master’s degree in educational administration, a bachelor’s degree in secondary social studies education, and worked in medical school graduate admissions.