Episode 12: Understanding the Value of Mentoring Relationships

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I think it’s the village who gets us where we are. I personally call my mentors, the personal board of directors, because they are all invested in Latoya being the best Lithuania she can. I’m kind of thinking about, you know, what ginger has asked us, which is like, how do we talk to a high school student about mentorship?
Don’t be dissuaded. If one doesn’t respond positively, what doesn’t respond at all? [00:01:00] Hi, everyone. I’m ginger Ocado with the live Sean cancer institutes at the university of Texas at Austin Dell medical school. I’m so very honored to present to you a special episode on mentorship. Join me in welcoming Dr.
Latoya Smith and Dr. Richard Reddit, not only are they UT Austin alumni. They also have shared experiences as Latin scholars with military backgrounds and steering multiple leaderships here on campus.

Hi, my name’s Dr. Latoya Smith and I am the vice president for the division of diversity and community engagement. I’m also an assistant professor of practice in the college of education. I’d also like to introduce, uh, my co podcaster, Dr. Richard Reddit. Well, thank you, Dr. Smith. Uh, I’m Dr. Rich Reddick. I am a professor of education, leadership and policy.

I’m also the associate Dean for equity, community engagement [00:02:00] and outreach in the college of education at UT Austin. And I have courtesy appointments in the African and African diaspora studies department, as well as planned two honors. And I’m also Texas sex. So. Well makes two of us. Yes. Well, the reason why, uh, I asked you to join me today, rich, is that you do a lot of research on the role of mentors for ship.
If you had to define, since you do a lot of research on this, what mentorship is, what a mentor is. Can you give us that definition or a basic comment? Oh, sure. Yeah. And so, uh, when I first encountered like the mentoring concept, I looked at the work of Kathy crab who’s professor at Boston university. And really I consider her the queen of mentoring and Kathy’s definition is it’s a combination of both instrumental, which is how would I accomplish a goal?
How would I do a [00:03:00] job? How would I, you know, Get through higher education, that piece of it. Right? So to these sort of, uh, lessons that help you get through and understand how to do something, but then also the psychosocial. So an investment in the person, but mentoring specifically is a combination of the instrumental that will help you achieve your goals as well as the psychosocial and, um, That’s the pinnacle.

You need to have mentoring, but the reality is you need the different kinds of, we call it developmental relationships throughout your life. You need role models, you need sponsors, you need coaches every so often. You’re going to encounter people who can actually mentor you. So the goal is that. All be your mentors is to sort of discern who in my life is serving in that particular role.

And who am I? Life is serving in a coaching role. Okay. And I know that both of us have, would not be in the positions that we are in, um, [00:04:00] both educationally career wise without mentors. And so I wanted to ask you, how do you think your career journey has been shaped by mentors? That’s a great way to start this conversation, Latoya, because as you said, I mean, I don’t know where I would be without the influence of my mentors and it started from me very early.
So I I’ve just had those. Extreme benefit of having access to really strong mentors, pretty much all through my secondary education experiences, my higher ed experiences. So I’ll start with the higher education piece. So I came to UT in the fall of 1990, uh, ancient history. I know for many people, but. When I got to the university, one thing that, um, sort of struck me was just how challenging it was to navigate the institutional space.

I didn’t really know. And I’m from Austin, you know? So you would think that I would have some [00:05:00] understanding and way of navigating the university of Texas, because it’s my hometown, but I’m from Southeast Austin educated in east Austin, which is a mostly black and Latino community. University of Texas in 1990 was not that.
And literally when I came to university of Texas, probably the first week I was here, there were a suite of programs called the welcome program and it was labeled the welcome program for African-American Mexican American students. And at one of the events, the administrator there, uh, this is Brenda. She saw a saw me and she said, oh, you’re coming to these events.

You know, it’s good to see you here. And you know, that was a fateful moment because Mrs. Bird helped me navigate the university of Texas and from Mrs. Bert to people like Sharon Justice or former Dean of students to people like, uh, Ricardo Romo, um, John Ragle, all these people at university of Texas, I encountered who just wanted to [00:06:00] see me succeed.

And more importantly, Could see things that I couldn’t see in myself that I really saw the benefit of mentoring. And of course, I ended up researching mentoring as a, as a academic topic because it had been so impactful in my own life. You know, it’s interesting that you, you know, some of the individuals that you’ve named, I think also either indirectly or also directly provided some mentorship to me, but very similarly, I think I grew up.

Both personally and professionally at UT Austin. And it was, you know, due to the, kind of the care, the support, the guidance of individuals who saw something in me and made themselves available. I think invested in who I was, and I think also invested in who they knew I could. Right. And, uh, but I also think back to mentors in high school.
So, you know, I had, it’s interesting, [00:07:00] you know, I had a really wonderful Latin teacher and, you know, she kind of took me under her wing and I never thought that I would be into Latin. So, you know, love Latin, um, And, you know, but because of her and you know, her encouraging me and saying that I could go to UT Austin, I didn’t think that I would be able to even survive at UT Austin, but I think she saw something in me for me personally, being a first generation college student, you know, my parents didn’t know I was kinda on my own and trying to figure it out.

Cause they had never been to college. Especially at a UT Austin. I think about mentorship, you know, and why this is such an important topic is that I don’t believe we ever get anywhere by ourselves. And the reality is when we think about what it’s like for first gen low income, Students of color, you know, uh, queer students, you know, women’s students, all those different identities that you might hold.

The reality is, is that those pathways are [00:08:00] much more. I think it’s the village who gets us where we are. I personally call my mentors, the personal board of directors, because they are all invested in Latoya being the best Latoya she can be. And, um, What happens in that situation really helps you figure out what to do when you go forward.
You look for people who resemble the people who have helped you in the past, but I also am my research with something I’ve discovered is that mentors, good mentors typically fall on either side of the binary, either mentored in a really excellent way. Or they had very poor mentoring or a lack of it, and that’s why they mentor.
So it’s interesting that, and I think for me, for sure it started at home. They could see wildly on what I could do, kind of fits the job description for all the mentors I had going for. Yeah, that’s interesting. And, you know, we just talked about that. We [00:09:00] bond over Latin. So my dad was also in the military, the air force, I think about my first mentors and very similarly they were my parents and, and our, my parents.

Um, and I think it was more about, they both, um, grew up in a rural towns. They were sharecroppers. And so I think both provided me a great sense of balance, um, with, uh, work ethic. But that also, I was never less than anybody else. So even though there were meager beginnings, you know, I never should be, um, afraid or never should think that I am less than because of, you know, my back.

Right. Google my life is serving as a role model. You know, all those things seem to matter to me. So yeah, those. That’s the different, different station. I always say that they’re all essential. So yes, mentoring is classically important. We’re talking about now, but so is a role modeling. So it’s sponsorship.
So it’s coaching. [00:10:00] So, you know, I guess we said earlier, you’ve been doing a lot of research, you know, you spent years researching, you know, the role of mentors and just the concept of mentorship in general, if you were going to really highlight the characteristics of an ideal mentor, Relationship. What does that look like?
What, what do you think are necessary to say? You know what, that’s, that’s a good, that’s an ideal mentorship. Yeah. I think the first thing is definitely a sense of reciprocity, right? And so I interviewed these mentors about their influence, what they’ve done. When you talk to people who’ve been mentored by somebody, whether it’s a mentoring list for a year or 30 years, There is a bond of trust there.

And trust is interesting because it can mean, you know, I told you my most deep dark secrets in my life. Or you committed to doing this work and you’re always there when I need you. Right? That’s all [00:11:00] in the range and understanding of trust, confidentiality, it’s trust and support with it’s trust in having somebody back that is a cornerstone of what happens in a mentoring relationship.

And that really is even more important. We talk about mentoring across identities. So if a male mentors, a woman. A white person, mentors, there’s a black person, you know, and so on and so forth. The idea that that person is trustworthy is incredibly important in a relationship. As you, we were talking about trust.

I was thinking about my own mentorship relationships. The ones that I feel have made the biggest impact on me, but the ones that I also feel like I have made a great impact on the individual and the pieces that were there was a sense of vulnerable. On both sides. So I was vulnerable as a mentee and willing to, and, you know, in some relationships, I didn’t tell them my [00:12:00] deepest, darkest secrets, but I did show a sense of vulnerability of, you know, I, I wasn’t aware of this, or even in the vulnerability of the way I asked questions or what I asked, but on the opposite side, as a mentor, I was also vulnerable in explaining that I didn’t always have the answers explaining kind of what my path was like and my journey and that I didn’t always have it figured out.

I mean, that takes this sense of vulnerability. And I think that also lends itself to building trust and reciprocity. But that makes the experience more real to you and you can start identifying, oh, so you didn’t have it figured out from the first day you got it, this game, you had to work through a certain thing.
And I think for me the times when my mentors have shared vulnerabilities or insecurities, and even not necessarily twenty-five years ago, but like, yo, this year I’m struggling with this issue. I’m like, how can you struggle? You know, [00:13:00] important person, how is that possible? But it helps you understand the university reality of our experiences.

And that is none of us are complete products, right? I like to think that we’re all constantly learning and that learning happens until the day you inspire and thinking more about the characteristics of what makes a good mentor and a good mentee. What do you think are, you know, those attributes and we’ll, let’s take mentor first.
Well, I think it’s an investment, right? So, uh, I often talk about role models versus troll models, right? And so you find people in the world who are doing amazing things, but they have no time for you. Right. So, and that’s not necessarily shade to you. They could be so committed or so in their space that they don’t have the actual capacity.
So one thing that always happens for me when I meet somebody. Wow. You know, you’re doing amazing things. I want to, you know, learn from you. I’m always very honest about what my constraints are. Right. And you and I have the same [00:14:00] issue, right. We have a million things to do. And one of the questions I always tell people is like, what are you looking for?

Can I satisfy that? And I might end up being a person who is an inspiration. I may end up being a person as a role model. I might be a sponsor. I could be a mentor event, but that’s not necessarily something we need to start with the right away. You need to figure out in your own sort of observations if we have the time and the commitment that’s needed.

So what I need from me at a conference that’s often difficult because I may not be close to you, you know, physically. So a lot of this spiel would pick up a phone or. Get coffee or, or connect over, you know, a meal. So if that can happen, then that might be different. But I’ve also theorized about this idea of metros at a distance.
And there are people that I’m sure you have the same people in your life too. I can see them once a year or I could see them at a conference or I can see him at a meeting. I can talk to them 20 minutes on a phone once a year. And that’s what I need. [00:15:00] And so I think the important thing is to realize that definition is really between you and your mentor and the mentee, right?

Those people have to decide if this is what’s working for them. And if they say like, you know, we get together once a year, we have a conversation, we talk about all of life’s challenges and we feel good about that. Then that’s, that should work. Like we don’t want to get into this sort of contest about what the ideal mentoring arrangement is, because reality, right.

Think about how technology has augmented our lives and distance the pandemic. So we may find different arrangements. I mean, when I was really immersed in the literature, there’s a lot of discussion about technology and IE mentoring is that helping things that worse. And the reality is I think it really matters to the people who were involved in the relationship.

If they both feel this is working in my favor, the way I want to. That’s great. And so I do think that part of mentoring is [00:16:00] the sort of opening of opportunities of capital and networking to others. So a mentor is not simply just saying here, I’m here to help you. It’s like, I’m here to help you. And here’s my contact list.
So I updated that from Rolodex. Here’s my contact list. So the people I know, you know, or your. Degree removed from those people. So I’m going to make sure that you have access to those people. So when you have an opportunity or something you needed to get done, I’ll facilitate that. But on the mentees, and I’m reminded of the work of one of my former students, Dr.Victoria Black, who has a great Ted talk about, you know, this concept of mentor ability, which I have formulated many years ago. And when I discovered it. You know, almost every mentoring program in the world exists has a training program for the mentors, like do this. Don’t do that. There are very rarely programs to help mentees understand how to leverage that [00:17:00] responsibility because you tell me somebody is here to help me and that person is putting a lot into me.

I might feel insecure about that. I might feel that’s a little bit excessive. I might kind of withdraw. I have to understand that I’m bringing to the relationship as well. I have to understand that there are certain things about being a mint tea that I need to sort of enact to make sure I could benefit from the mentors, uh, expertise.
And so I started talking about this idea of measurability, where I talked to more and more mentors who said, you know, I’m working with young people. They don’t know how to use it. They don’t know how to take my advice. They don’t know how to sort of tap into my expertise. Um, sometimes they’re too timid because they feel.

They’re bothering me. And the reality is I love it when this person reaches out to me and asked me for advice and so on and so forth. And so I know Victoria, she works at Texas state and she’s been working with her students to help them [00:18:00] understand that you are bringing all of this important, uh, sort of quality to the relationship.
And you might have somebody who’s been in their career for 30 years. You come along and you have all this energy, all this drive and they’re inspired. So that’s what you’re bringing to that person. And, you know, it’s okay to reach out to that person. And so Kay to be the person reaching out to them because a lot of times you’re like, I don’t want to bog that person.

And I think we all went through this, right? We had experiences where like, oh, this person’s so important. Well, that person gave you their information for a reason. They wanted you to follow up. But now this happens to me all the time. Talk to a group of students, I’ll say, here’s my email, here’s my phone number.
Give me a call. Maybe one or two people reach out to me. That’s true. And you know, that’s abilities. The idea that when those opportunities that are presented to you, you take advantage of them. And just think about how many [00:19:00] times somebody said to us, you know, I see potential in you and they didn’t say it this way, right.
This would be very easily. They did. But you know, if you. Just a modicum of work to show me you’re interested in as well. I’m going to meet you more than halfway. And, you know, I think about it all the time, because I don’t think I’m the only person that Carol Hoveland or pat Tim Brookie, or Brenda Bird or Ricardo Romo or Charles Willie reached out to.

Right. Um, and one should not take that on as being some kind of reflection of. You know your own suitability as a mentee, it could be that person’s really busy. They could have forgotten to call you back. I’m guilty of that. I get texts all the time. I was going to texts and then I realized I hadn’t responded to the texts.
So, I mean, sometimes it’s like, don’t be discouraged because one person didn’t end up being what you thought they would be at a lot of times, it’s a person you weren’t expecting. Um, I’m an [00:20:00] African-American male, so I might’ve. My mentoring pathway would be populated for African-American males. And in fact, it’s full of white women and Latinas and Asian women.

And it’s like, how did this happen? But I think one thing that I learned from being somebody who moves around so much, you know, it’s military kids, we know this, right. You kind of figure out this person, you know, I gotta make friends tomorrow. This person is looking out for me in a way I have that. They’ve got my back.
I’m going to follow up. And I think that goes a long way. Yeah, I was going to say, and I appreciate you saying that, uh, just about, you know, cross identity mentoring. And I want to put a pin in that because I want us to talk about that in just a second. I’ve been going back to, there was something you said about mentor ability and I think the other piece that’s important aspect of measurability is understanding the difference between.

And [00:21:00] I think feedback in itself is a gift and you ha and as a good mentee, you have to be able to accept feedback, even when it’s hard. Um, when somebody is telling you you’re not worth anything, or you have. You know, you haven’t proved yourself in certain ways, you know, and actually think about the sort of popular media depictions of mentors.

Right. And there’s that movie about the drummer? I forgot it’s called and there’s that the mentor who’s helping the kid learn how to drum it. He’s abusive. Right. I don’t want the drum line. Are you talking about the drum line? It’s a more recent one. It’s not drum line. And actually that’s a good one to talk about.
Two drum line is a good one because Orlando Jones really, you know, sort of pushes, you know, Nick cannon in certain ways. And you know, maybe sometimes it’s like, wow, that’s on the edge. But generally the idea is like, I’m trying to get you to this point, this movie in particular, I’m thinking about it. It has.

I can’t remember his name, but he is the actors in the Allstate commercials. [00:22:00] Um, and he was also an Oz, but he plays this teacher. And he’s like off the chain, like that’s too much. Right. And it’s important to have access to people, to sort of bounce ideas off of, right. To sort of say, this is happening in my relationship.
Does this sound normal to you? Does that sound right to you and get some calibration? Right. People are like, whoa, that sounds way out there. And I want to make sure that people whiplash and this is why it’s important to be when you’re a mentor relationship to have. People who can also observe and intervene when necessary and say, you know what?

I don’t think this is something you need to do. And you know, one thing about mentoring research research, that’s interesting is that their relationships, so they start and they end, right. And I’ve had to tell people this relationship is ending and you might mourn that you might regret that, but that’s a natural part of the situation.
[00:23:00] Mentoring evolves into something else. It becomes a friendship, becomes a peer relationship, but sometimes it becomes a rivalry. Right. Happens. Yeah. Well, let me, so let me ask this, uh, you know, we’ve talked about, um, kind of effective mentors and attributes of mentees and you and I have both talked about at some point and experience that.

Our personal board of directors don’t necessarily look like us or share the same identities. You know, you think you talked about, um, you as an African-American male, having white women and Latinas and Asian women. And, you know, for me as a African-American female, I ha some of my mentors are white women, white men, um, Hispanic men, you know, who have mentored me.

Um, and yes, there are also been African-Americans. Women. Um, but that’s not, I don’t always go looking for that, [00:24:00] even though, you know, that seems natural to do so. I wanted to talk about the benefits of cross-cultural mentorship. Yeah. That’s spoken like a military kid, for sure. Uh, because this is the nature of our experiences, right?

You have to look for support in unlikely places. And so. What you’re talking about something we call homophily, which is like having same identities, right? So there is certainly an importance. If you’re a queer identifying student, you’re going to want to find somebody whose identity. Now we get the world’s a queer person to give you that perspective.

You’re a woman in the sciences. It’s going to be really helpful to have a woman who’s a scientist to sort of help you navigate something. I study in addition to mentoring is something called cultural taxation, and that is anybody who exists. Space of influence that is minoritized. So people of color women, queer people with disabilities, if you have those identities, you’re often asked to do a lot of work supporting people in that [00:25:00] identity group or informing people about it.

And the problem with that is that often doesn’t come with compensation or recognize. So a lot of times people don’t succeed in their fields because they’re doing all of this mentoring, they’re doing all of this sort of work about expanding the, the remit of the field. And I think that’s so important to understand that sometimes.
And you know, I’m very fortunate. You and I are fortunate because we’re both educators, we have education doctorates. So part of our work is actually. But for a lot of people, that’s not part of their work. And so you might find that that one woman in the engineering firm or the one gay person working in the ad agency doesn’t really have the capacity or space to do the mentoring and they might be nice about it and tell you that directly.

Show up. And so that means, as you said, you have to look for people who are willing to support and nurture you [00:26:00] and the people who are not from . And frankly, this is important because if you truly believe in issues of equity and inclusion, that means mentoring is everybody’s job. Not just the black folks, the brown folks, the Asian folks, the American folks, the women folks it’s everybody’s job.

So it’s very possible that you could find an effective mentor who was a person who has very different experiences than you given my identity. My experience. You might want to do this, but talk to others. Right. So, um, I think it’s really important to understand that, um, mentoring. Like ways you would not expect.
And I just feel so fortunate that, um, the first time I’d kind of love my mentors when I’m like, there’s no way we have anything in common, because a lot times you don’t have much in common, but they do see something in you that is, needs to be developed. And, and you know, you and I are at the [00:27:00] point in our careers where we get to see this in students, ourselves.

I can see in you, something is going to happen and I just need to be there and sort of, sort of maybe give you some, a couple of nudges in the right direction. That is so exciting to me. Um, and I’m really blown away when I meet students are like, wait, I’m like, no, no, no. You’re blowing up the spot or you’re very close.
And you need to keep moving. And let me give you a couple of things I think might help you this way. Um, and I was, I was going to say this too, um, that I think there are absolute benefits to cross cultural mentorship. Um, and while you don’t have to share common identities, what I do think is important is that values are similar.
Right? So, and what I mean by that is, um, Find mentors. We may have different backgrounds, different perspectives, but we both value hard work and [00:28:00] ethics and doing things the right way and be in an operating it with a sense of integrity. I know that a mentor for me is not ever going to steer me in a direction where I compromise my integrity.

Right. Just someone who does not have, or share your identities, but what does share. Values that are important to you. Right. You know, and, and I’m, I’m kind of thinking about, you know, what ginger has asked us, which is like, how do we talk to a high school student about mentorship? And, you know, for me, um, it was very unexpected people sorta interested in me.

I could have been like, yeah, I’m not going to do that. Yeah. You’re old. Yeah. You’re, you know, I could, I could come up with a million reasons to say, I’m not going to follow up, but I followed it. And, um, I’ll, I’ll use T pat, Tim Brookie. Who’s my English teacher from 11th grade. She’s a firecracker, [00:29:00] you know, she’s still who she was when I had her as a student, when I was a student in her class, 30 years earlier, keep going, keep going, keep going until you find that person’s like, okay, sure.
I think how are we most, most of us navigate our mentor relationships. My mentor does this one thing wonderfully, but they do not do this well. And that’s okay because there are human beings. They’re not perfect. I have plenty of people to model myself after who might do those things different. Well, Dr.
Reddick, that was well said. And I appreciate the time that you spent with me, uh, talking about mentorship. And I do hope that our listeners, you know, get to take a gleam of any of this and, um, find, uh, what they are looking for in a mentor and also learn to be an effective mentor. A really incredible and impactful discussion today on the value of mentorship brought to you today by Dr. Latoya Smith and Dr. Richard. Thank you for joining us today. If you’ve [00:30:00] enjoyed this episode, please tell a friend and be sure to subscribe for questions about this episode or the lifts. Shawn cancer institutes, please email live strong cancer institutes@dellmeddotutexas.edu. You can also follow our chair and director Dr.

Gail Eckhart on Twitter at S as in Sam. Gail G a I L at cart, E C K H a R D T. And remember, wherever you are in life, mentorship is important to you. Seek what you need in a mentor and keep searching for one that will provide you with effective feedback direction. And most importantly, their resources and their time.
This is Ginger Okoro. Thank you for your ongoing support of Cancer Uncovered.