DON'T SETTLE PHASE - OFFICE OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

What do you do to celebrate students’ accomplishments?

My approach to celebrating students’ accomplishments varies according to students’ personalities.

•  I always say something to highlight that they are, in fact, accomplishments to be proud of – whether they are small step accomplishments like successfully meeting with a potential mentor or large landmark accomplishments like getting published.
•  If I learn about the accomplishment in person, I ask for more details – which mentor, when are they going to follow-up about the project, which journal, co-authored or solo authored, etc.
•  If a student seems timid about recognizing that they have accomplished something, I stress that what they did took hard work, speaks to their diligence as a student, and that I am proud of them even if they don’t feel like it’s a big deal.  (Hopefully by the end of the interaction they at least start to feel the impact of having achieved something.)
•   I have also high-fived a few students when that fits with their general mannerisms. 
• I make notes about accomplishments that are impending and try to follow-up with students when I see them in person near when those accomplishments will come to fruition.
• And I try to tell other people as relevant when that student is present so that they can see the widespread and shared joy in their own accomplishments.  Finally, when these accomplishments are accompanied by news articles, I post them to our webpage so that the students get appropriate exposure for their achievements and have more visual and permanent reinforcement that what they do matters and is awesome. 

How do you help students define their personal edges?

I try to weave this idea into every step of my advising.  This is perhaps easier for me to do as a program advisor than it is for departmental advisors since our programs are optional.

• We discuss what good mentorship looks like for them – what they need in order to do well (interests, communication and learning styles, etc.) and what personal and professional goals they have (grad school, med school, published articles, etc.)
• I plant seeds for further engagement – multiple types of presentation for one project, seeking additional funding/perspectives on their project (e.g. community engaged learning or entrepreneurship), and leadership opportunities
• We discuss pros and cons of each type of further engagement – realistically how much time will it take them to do each of my suggestions, do they facilitate the students’ goals or are they just extra stuff to do, etc.
• I state very clearly that none of our programs take precedence over other parts of their lives and that they decide how much they want to do.
•  And when students discover that the level on engagement they are trying to have is just too much, we talk about healthy prioritization and how to jump back in if/when they decide they have time in the future.  I acknowledge that decreasing one’s level of engagement sometimes feels like a failure, but isn’t – not to me, not to our office, not for them in the long-term.

Submitted by Stephanie Shiver, Undergraduate Research Advisor