MENTORSHIP PROGRAM IN KAMPALA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Introduction

As KIU progress from one level to another, we have come up with a strong core to student
and mentor relationship. Student Mentorship is a dynamic reciprocal relationship between an
advanced career incumbent (mentor) and a beginner, aimed at promoting the development of
both.

Goals

 Career Counselling and development

 Professional enhancement

Importance

To describe the strengths, weaknesses and challenges of the mentorship program among
students of Kampala International University.

Program organization

As a team, we are hoping to begin this program from the effect of February 2019 whereby
students will be assigned a mentor at the beginning of his/her first year. The same mentor will
be maintained through the student’s tenure at the University. The program will aim to cover
academics, career plans and personal growth. Students will be provided with the name, email,
office location, contact extension, and office hours. The student mentors will also be notified
about the program. In a separate email, mentors will be advised regarding their
responsibilities, and are to ask to contact their mentees to arrange an initial meeting. Mentees
will have the option to change their mentors if not satisfied and will provide a reasonable
rationale for this change.

Possible challenges and solutions

Off course like any other program trying to begin, challenges to the program from both
mentee and mentors are inevitable. We hope to encounter lack of trained mentors.

Delays in the faculty meeting, the program organization will be discussed with all faculty and
expectations from the mentors will be highlighted.

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The college dean and program director will stress out the importance of mandatory meetings
with mentees, and the importance of documenting these meetings.

Mentors will be told to take a proactive role in this relationship. Any queries and questions
will be addressed in the meeting. The faculty will be required to display office hours
(dedicated time slots) for mentees on their office doors and also to communicate this
information to their mentees.

An introductory email to the students also will explain the scope of the program and
responsibilities of mentees.

Identification of weak students and academic counselling

The faculty will provide access via ‘faculty web access’ to the student grades so that they
could track student progress throughout the semester and identify weak students who required
counselling. As part of the mentorship program, such weak students will be offered academic
counselling and teaching tips for improvement in their performance.

Peer teaching

One of the unique features of this program is the introduction of peer teaching. Senior
students will be recruited to coach and teach the weak students on a one-to-one basis. Senior
students will be compensated for their time and effort with a stipend.

Student development committee

As part of the efforts to improve the mentorship program, a student development committee
will also form with representatives from senior faculty and students. The scope of the
committee will include overseeing research dissertation/reports, internship exercise and
students’ research-related activities during the academic year, e.g. conferences, moot court,
workshops and research papers.

Mentee expectations

To assess the success of the program, we will deliver a survey to mentees requiring them to
inform us about their perception of the program. Some of the findings of the survey will have
to show that many of the mentees never had a single meeting with their mentor.

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Mentee need to find the differences between male and female responses to the Likert-scaled
items in the questionnaire.

In finding out the results mentee are look into these items are: “my mentor is approachable”,
“my mentor is supportive and encouraging”, “my mentor motivates me to improve my work”,
“my mentor provides constructive critiques”, “my mentor is helpful in providing direction
and guidance”.

Survey will be carried out on students to find out the value of mentorship program on
professional growth and grade improvement. The needs to improve the program like possible
mechanisms to improve the overall effectiveness of the program will be allowed.

Mentor expectations

 Assist student in planning their research reports by setting reasonable, attainable goals
and establishing a timeline for completion of the research reports.
 Meet with the student on a regular basis
 Direct the Immersion project of the medical student
 Provide an environment that is intellectually stimulating, emotionally supportive, safe,
and free of harassment
 Hold students accountable for their time and effort invested in academics.
 Discuss daily schedules, routines, and duties. Share your teaching responsibilities
with the student teacher, exchange personal phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
Discuss appropriate dress code, attendance, and professional behavior in and out of
school.

Conclusions

Being a newly established program, we believe that the introduction of newer measures like
peer-to-peer teaching and mentoring, structured meetings, more research opportunities to the
mentees and developing a cordial but professional long term relationship, will help us in
overcoming the challenges. We suggest that communication and motivation, on the part of
both mentor and mentee, are the most important characteristics for the success of the
program. Further success may depend on training workshops and instruction sessions about
the mentorship program given to both faculty mentors and first-year student mentees.

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