Mentoring Program Subcommittee Meeting Minutes 12/2014

SAA Mentoring Sub-Committee Minutes

Conference call: Tuesday, December 9, 2014 @ 3:30 pm

Attended: Co-Chairs: Kate Dundon and Michael Zaidman.  Committee Members: Devhra BennettJones, Jeremy Brett, Andrea Gietzen, Alexandra A. Orchard.  Out: Deborah Richards

Call to order at 3:32 pm.

1. Meet and greet: everyone was introduced.

2. New mentoring e-mail form; no more spam.

a. In early November Matt Black from SAA restricted the discussion group so that people can’t e-mail the mentoring group directly unless they are SAA members.  Hopefully everyone’s spam has decreased.

3. Matching mentors and mentees via e-mail.  If you have any questions, reach out to Kate since she has the most experience.  Kate mentioned that once you get into the database and figure out the filters, the program is really pretty easy to grasp and make the matches happen.  It might not be the most transparent, but it’s free.

4. Mentoring month for January.  One of the previous mentor members suggested how can we check on those that have been matched?  How do we make sure the matches are working and how can the mentoring group manage it?  What if someone from the mentoring program could reach out to all involved with a survey.  Matt has offered to use SAA’s Survey Monkey’s account, which is a paid account and has more options.  Kate enlisted the help of Jeremy to refresh the previous match survey with more multiple choice answers that can be more easily analyzed.  Kate and Jeremy will work on this so the survey data will allow us to take action on the feedback collected.

  One way to promote National Mentoring Month for January is to have SAA put a plug in the blog, Off the Record, which was done last year.  Also, perhaps we could get a mention in The Loop?  Alexandra said she is the SAA reviews portal coordinator and if someone would write up some text, she could probably get it in The Loop.  Kate will work on the text in the next week and work with Alexandra.

  Another way to promote mentoring in January, Michael suggested sending out an e-mail to your local/state/regional organizations about being a mentor.  Just be sure to say in the e-mail that you must be a SAA member to participate.

5. Q & A.  No questions.

Meeting adjourned 3:45 pm.  Minutes by MZ.