Mentorship is critical to student academic success and persistence,
especially for students from historically underrepresented (HU) groups. In a
program designed to support the academic success of HU undergraduates in STEM
who wish to pursue a PhD in those fields, students experience comprehensive
support including financial aid, highly-engaged mentoring, dual faculty
mentorship, professional development workshops, and summer research
experiences. Scholars in this program, the Cal-Bridge program, consistently
report that faculty mentorship is the most impactful feature. While mentorship
was rated highly, preliminary evaluation indicated an early deficit in a sense
of community among scholars. In response, faculty professional development and
support for peer networking were implemented to expand and enhance the
relationships that support scholar success. Here we present a promising
multifaceted model of mentorship that can support the academic success of HU
undergraduates.Comment: Submitted to Understanding Interventions. 23 pages. 4 figures.
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