Recent policy decisions from the Trump administration, such as the implementation of a federal hiring freeze, have created uncertainty for many students. In the context of research at the University of Michigan,this development has heightened the importance of mentorship in navigating these new changes.
Dr. Sanjay Saint, George Dock professor of internal medicine at the University and Chief of Medicine at the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center, shared insights from his article “Sacred Moments During Mentorship,” published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Saint also serves as executive director of the Sacred Moments Initiative, which is geared toward cultivating and studying ‘sacred moments’ within health care and beyond.
“I’ve had a long-standing interest in mentorship because I’ve been so fortunate to have wonderful mentors, and in fact, one of the reasons I came to Michigan 26 years ago to start my academic career is because (the University) has a reputation for nurturing their young people,” Saint said. “I’ve been reflecting on my own kind of journey, and it just hit me that there are these moments in time during a conversation with a mentor or a mentee that just stick with you, and that changes how you see things.”
Throughout the research process, Saint said mentorship serves an important role in connecting students with people who have overcome similar obstacles.
“I think research can be very intimidating and is quite competitive, and there are many more disappointments than successes,” Saint said. “Having someone who’s gone through that can help you overcome those obstacles and in research, especially there’s certain ways that you can optimize your success, but unless you’re shown how to do that, you would never know.”
Saint said his main takeaway from creating the article was realizing the impact mentors can have on their mentees and how essential it is to foster relationships through mentorship.
“The term ‘sacred moments’ has been used in clinical psychology, and as a physician, I’ve had sacred moments when I’ve taken care of patients that are memorable … and I hadn’t really thought of these moments occurring in other areas, but then I’ve also had them in mentoring relationships, and so I wanted to marry those two,” Saint said.
Similar to the Sacred Moments Initiative, the Rackham Graduate School presents the Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Awards each year, where mentors are nominated for an award for their dedication and commitment to creating a supportive research environment for their mentees. The awards highlight the importance of mentorship and the characteristics that make for a good mentor.
In 2024, awards were presented to five U-M faculty members who displayed the utmost support and encouragement for the mentees within their research fields. Nicholas Valentino, Donald R. Kinder collegiate professor of political science, was one of the award winners.
In an interview with The Daily, Valentino said a significant part of mentoring students is to have patience and assess their skills before diving directly into the research.
“I think mentoring is very individualistic,” Valentino said. “When you have the good fortune to be around students with diverse backgrounds on pretty much every dimension, I think it requires that you’re patient and you figure out what the student brings to the relationship and you try to maximize the progress that they can make.”
Valentino said another key part of his mentoring technique is allowing students to make their own decisions.
“A softer, lighter guidance is always better for me than to dictate what they should or shouldn’t think about and how they need to execute their project,” Valentino said. “I always try to tell students that it’s up to them to make the decisions, and I can help them lay out their options, (but) they have to figure out which ones are appropriate for their projects or for their ideas.”
In an interview with The Daily, Rackham student Avery Goods, a mentee of Valentino, said she values the continuous support and encouragement Valentino provides.
“(Valentino) has always encouraged me to be rigorous but creative in how I research, and I think a mentor can be great at building up your confidence,” Goods said. “Tons of grad students have extreme imposter syndrome and I think the difference in getting over that is really up to your mentor.”
Another winner of the award, Sonya Dal Cin, professor of communication and media and associate chair for graduate studies, mentors graduate students in the communication and psychology departments. In an interview with The Daily, Dal Cin said, in her opinion, mentorship is especially essential in doctoral-level research.
“At the doctoral level, mentoring is integral to the entire thing because in undergrad, students are able to kind of build a degree that they want, and they have some guidance from programs about course requirements and classes they have to take and those sorts of things,” Dal Cin said. “At a doctoral level it’s much more of an apprenticeship approach where students are learning skills and taking workshops and a lot of that requires the ability to talk one-on-one with someone else who does that work already.”
LSA senior Olivia Phillips, a mentee of Dal Cin, told The Daily she believes the most important aspect of having a mentor is the support system it provides.
“I think it’s great to have someone to fall back on, in a sense, if I’m kind of freaking out, I don’t know what to do, I don’t even know next steps,” Phillips said. “To ask someone that really is so knowledgeable in what they’re doing is just so helpful to help me not panic and to be like ‘Okay, I’m going to be okay, I’m going to move forward, and we’re going figure this out together.’”
Daily Staff Reporter Halle Pratt can be reached athallehap@umich.edu.
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