Episode 3 – Mentors for Success

[0:00:09 Speaker 1] Hello and welcome to the sounds of success. My name is Phil Butler.

[0:00:13 Speaker 2] I’m Christina. Billy.

[0:00:15 Speaker 1] We’re really excited about this week’s episode. We have a fantastic guest. Dr. Richard Reddick is here to talk about the value of mentorship, his own experience with mentorship. He’s been doing research on mentorship for more years than I probably wants me to admit. Or at least tell s Oh, yeah. You know, I think that you’re really gonna enjoy this interview.

[0:00:35 Speaker 2] Absolutely. Dr. Richard Reddick has quite a lot to say. He has been a mentor. He has been a mentee for his whole life. And he has lots and lots of advice for you all. For first of your students, I know that your advisers or your professors or your friends are always telling you, you know, find a mentor goto office hours, and you don’t really know where to start. This is the podcast for you.

[0:00:59 Speaker 1] So I think without further ado, let’s transition over to the interview we had with Dr Reddick. Yeah, awesome. Well, today, on the podcast of sounds, success were super fortunate to have one of my favorite people on the University of Texas campus. Dr. Richard Reddick. He’s joining us today to talk about the value of mentorship. I could go on and on about his credentials and his highlights and accolades, but I decided to pick out some of my favorite things about Dr Ridic. He was recognized by the Texas. Texas is an outstanding young Texas ex. I’m sure he appreciates me putting the young in there. Yeah, he’s been teaching here at UT for 13 years now, I believe. Yeah, this is the year of lucky things, right? He’s the assistant dean for equity and community engagement in College of Education. He’s the assistant director of the Plan two honors program in the college liberal arts. But here’s my favorite is both a Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune champion. Well, I

[0:01:59 Speaker 0] want to clarify that the money is one from those episodes are gone. I will a fortune. What was a College Week episode? And so I always tell people we want a $50,000 annuity from University of Texas. So if you have general scholarship funds, there’s probably like a fraction of a cent that came from that. So you’re welcome.

[0:02:20 Speaker 1] All right. Thank you. Or Pat Sajak. I don’t know who we think that both

[0:02:26 Speaker 0] of them is fine.

[0:02:27 Speaker 1] Yeah. Merv Griffin. That’s probably who we think. Wow, E anyhow, enough about game shows. What we’re really trying to get to the bottom of today is mentorship. And I know Dr Reddick, a lot of your research has been on the topic of mentorship. So we thought you could probably tell us some things about that. So can you talk to us a little bit about how you got involved in this idea of mentorship? Why, that’s an interesting topic to you and just maybe Cem some tidbits that you’ve learned along the way.

[0:02:54 Speaker 0] Sure Phil and Christina’s good have to be here and thanks for inviting me. And, you know, it all started when I was a little boy. Seriously did everything right. So my dad was in the Air Force, and so that meant that every couple of years we moved. And so I went to 12 different schools before I graduated from high school. I lived in the UK for 10 years, and all that means is that I was constantly moving into new environments. And so being a new kid constantly sucks. It’s not a good experience. I don’t really recommended. But you also learn how to be a new kid. And part of being a new kid is figuring out How do I get my foothold in this place? How do I figure out who will hang out with Who are the nice teachers who are the jerks, Right. And so I think that was something that I kind of picked up on Is a military kids, Just you, you know, you get drops into a school, you talk funny. You look funny. You got to go find people who can bring into the fold that kind of thing. So I suppose it was always operating the background on some level. And, of course, when it came, came time for college. You know, I’m a first generation college students, So literally since I was 18 years old, my parents were like, Good luck with that Hope it works out. You know, you’re smart, you’ll figure it out, which is nice motivation. But it’s not actually this actually get you, you know, advising appointment, whatever. So when I came to u T, I had what a lot of students feel, which is the imposter syndrome in the sense of not fitting in or belonging, but probably the first they Even before classes started, I went to a program called The Welcome Program and Mrs Brenda Burt was one of the coordinators and I went to the table with the pizza. Was, of course, back then

[0:04:31 Speaker 2] I was Yeah, Back

[0:04:33 Speaker 0] then I was Flacco rich. I could eat like pizza. I wanted Thio. And so I went for it and then she was like, Oh, you know, so great to meet you. You know, you should come to our other events. We have more events. I’m like, cool. And so I went to all the events and lo and behold, that connection with Brenda, Bert and the welcome program lasted my entire undergraduate career. I worked for orientation. I worked at the Freshman Issues Resource Services team, first base in the Gebauer Building. When the dean of students was there and, yeah, in the basement. E was in the basement. That’s the best spot to be. And oh, my

[0:05:10 Speaker 1] Maybe there. Maybe there’s ghosts of rich reading pass out there that

[0:05:13 Speaker 0] Yeah, yeah, they’re not ghosts used to listen to it all. I can tell you that, but yes. So I did that all through college. I was r A s, so I kind of had this sort of, I don’t know, role and I certainly benefited from it was kind of reciprocal. I realized I was getting good guidance. You know, people like Sharon Justice and Jim Vick. And Glenn Maloney, you know, kind of shaped my way through the university. Renee and Curtis Polk. Those kinds of folks got me through the university. And I also try to do the same thing for students that came after me and so funny. I was talking to Howard Nurcan, whose Texas X and student body president the nineties, and we’re still talk, right? And we still have a dynamic where he’s like, You should do this. Okay, I’m gonna do it. So

[0:05:56 Speaker 1] I was in your class 13 years ago, and here we are, still chatting it up, right? You see, it never

[0:06:01 Speaker 0] ends. So the thing that I realized when I went to graduate school, and actually I should give a little bit of Inter studio before that happened, I was teaching in Houston and again being a teacher at the age of 22 is a terrifying experience. You only get through it if you have strong mentors. In my school, I had terrific mentors. When you list Alexander, Mrs Alexander was so great to me, she just She was like a mother in a lot of ways. And I

[0:06:29 Speaker 2] was also

[0:06:29 Speaker 0] going to kind of, you know, I was transitioning to being adult often campus from having the campus experience to being like I’m just a one of, you know, thousands of teachers in this district. I don’t really have any foothold in the space s Oh, that was a transition I had to go through and then long story short, go to graduate school. I work in student affairs and I’m working in residence. Life in particular. I have always I work with. I have staff members I work with. And again, this idea of helping people get to the next stage of their existence is what I do. And I also knew I mean, it’s as well. But for the first time, my last job before I went to grad school, my doctorate I was kind of in the space where there were people at the very highest level, like you gotta say I want to be there. But I was in a strata of a bunch of people, kinda in the same place. I’m like, Well, who I look to for advice. And I had great advice when I was at Cal Poly when I was at Emory and I just like I needed this again. So the question I had for grad school and I applied to grad school on a whim, I really did. I wasn’t really prepared. Kinda does that. We’ll see what happens, and I did. And I said, Well, I’m interested in this idea of, you know, mentoring. You know? How do you figure out what to do next? Who’s shipping your career? And I was doing in the context of being in a student affairs field, like like every high read scholar. I wanted to be a dean of students or a vice president Student Affairs s. So I was like, Who’s gonna help me get to that next level? How does that work? So they apparently like that. So I got into grad school and again, I once again had this incredible experience so frank to it, Who’s now? He received Connecticut was my mentor that he was disappear, you know, he was older than me, but he was another student, and he shaped my life and incalculable ways, Like getting this research project. And I ended up working with people like Dean Whitlow and Charles Willie, who was really my academic mentor. I wrote three books with Dr Willie and you know, all these great things happen to me, So I am in mentoring research. What I found that was interesting is typically people who are good mentors or interested in mentoring in some way either had one of two dichotomous experiences. They either had an amazing mentor or they had terrible mentoring. In my case, I had amazing mentors. And so the work started evolving in That kind of started realizing I was moving more towards a faculty kind of entity on. I said to myself, You know, I’m a first gen college students. I have no idea what faculty members do. You know, they teach. I know that s o s’s right. Right. So I said, Well, let me study what happens to black students when they’re being mentored. So I was interested in understanding what faculty didn’t in particular. what black faculty did to support black students. So great, This is fantastic. So I go to my advisor, Bridget Long, and she’s amazing. And I tell her I want to a study about mentoring. I want to study black faculty who mentor black students. She’s like, That’s great rich. So what’s your comparison group? What’s the control I’m like, huh? You know, because she’s an economist, she’s a quality. I mean, a qualitative researcher on. I’m like, I just wanna study that phenomenon. She’s like, No, I want you to compare to something else. And so you walk out of the room just finding out that your dissertation sample has been doubled. So that wasn’t a good

[0:09:46 Speaker 2] feeling. Yeah,

[0:09:47 Speaker 0] but what I always say about that is that I have written mawr on cross race mentoring that I have written about same race mentoring. I don’t think I found out anything terribly unique about why black faculty mentor black students. But why do white faculty do this work That’s interesting on, and obviously the thing that comes out is that most times you talk to faculty who do this work there a little incredulous. They’re like, Well, I mentor all students, you know? What are you talking about? You know well, no, I’ve talked to black students and they say to me not only your mentor to black students, You’re known for your mentoring of black students and as a phenomenology ist people start telling me stories and unpacking it. And most of time, they’ve never really thought about this. It’s just something they do. And they think about their formative experiences, what it was like when they were growing up or when they were a young professor. And then all of a sudden, they start seeing the pictures themselves like, Yeah, that’s probably why they do it. And the thing I discovered it’s kind of interesting is this concept which I call proximal experiences of being other. And what that means is that a lot of times when you’re mentoring across race or across gender, that’s obviously a huge sort of social gap, right? You’ve got experiences the other person doesn’t have. However, if you’ve had experiences of being marginalized in some way, what typically happens is that people can go back to their I call it empathy, reserves, right. They kind of have a sense, like if you’re one of the few students of color in my in my class or the university. I have a sense that perhaps you need to have a check in just to see how you’re doing and not how you’re doing in my class. But

[0:11:20 Speaker 2] how are

[0:11:20 Speaker 0] you doing? How is life treating you? And of course, mentoring is not simply helping you, you know, become a better student. It’s also being invested you personally. And so a lot of times those faculty do that, they’ll meet with student and say, You know, how are things going that students like classes? Great. I’m learning things. They’re like, Okay, that’s great. But how are you doing? Person? And that’s when a lot of times the students like, I am not doing that. Well, I don’t feel like I’m connected here. I feel I’m experiencing racial microaggressions. That stuff comes out then, and so all of these faculty I interview all the white faculty has something in their lives that kind of connected them to this. Like I know what it’s like to be marginalized.

[0:12:03 Speaker 1] Yeah, let me ask you a question about that. So if I’m a student and you know Ah professor or faculty member asked me that question like, How are you doing outside the classroom? Is that kind of like the green flag for me to be like, Oh, this person could potentially be a good mentor for me because they care about me outside of their class or outside of whatever way that I know them professionally,

[0:12:25 Speaker 0] Yeah, I mean, So Cathy Cram, who’s a scholar at Boston University, really did. I think the seminal work and mentoring research she talks about the psychosocial instrumental instrumental is the job. The topic you’re learning, right? That’s what you know most people get from a class. We call that sponsorship right or coaching. You get that kind of advice. But when somebody is like, I want you to know the stuff so you could be successful. But I also want you to be a happy. I want you to be successful in all them into your life. You know, I care about the fact that you’re going through a tough time because you broke up with your your person you’re dating, or I care that your dog is sit. You know, those kinds of things are part of what makes what it means to be a mentor, right? It’s an intimate relationship, you know. And people often like kind of giggle when I say that I’m like, well, not intimate the way you might think. But it’s intimate in the regard that you are connected to somebody’s well being and its enduring. So Ah, lot of times people who are mentors end up becoming friends or end up becoming lifelong mentors because you have such an investment in that relationship. So you’re right. I mean and like anything else, it’s there’s a little bit of magic involved, right? You have to have some kind of connection, some kind of spark. That kind of says, We’ve got a common interest or we’ve got such different perspectives. Maybe it just works, And that’s why I’ve always sort of told people It’s a lot of like like, sort of, Well, I was dating. You have to go find people who fit your personality and a lot of times it’s people who kind of compliment what you do. So in my case I have a very strong threat of very strong women of color, mentoring me, who are very organized and who are very direct. Which kind of fits me? Because I’m very disorganized. I’m very indirect. Eso I kind of I know when I think about like I said Brenda Bird or visit Terri along those air to women who mentored me very much the same way. Like rich, you’ve got some good ideas, but you can’t get together, man. You know, you

[0:14:26 Speaker 2] get Dio

[0:14:27 Speaker 0] you gotta do it better than this. And that was really helpful for me. So I know what works for me. And I think that’s a common thread. I actually have a very strong, uh, sort of threat of women, mentors and women women of color in particular. But I’ve also had male mentors. Doctor Willie I talked to you about was my mentor African American male from Texas. You know, you go to Harvard and you meet another guy who’s in your fraternity, whose from oak cliff you’re like, How could this possibly be happening? This is amazing.

[0:14:55 Speaker 1] All the boxes, pretty

[0:14:56 Speaker 0] much and so that was great. So but I actually think that somebody who moved around so much I also realized I wasn’t gonna find a lot of mentors who are Hama Phyllis in other words, same race, same gender. I have not had that many black male mentors, but the ones I’ve had there been amazing. So I’ve had many mawr white women, Latinas, African American women, Asian women. One of my great mentors is Dr Vivian Louise, professor at, uh, at Hunter College in New York. And Vivian has been mentoring me for years, and she’s just fantastic, you know, everything that I am not. So it helps that we have that connection, I guess.

[0:15:36 Speaker 1] Yeah. One of the things I’m always trying to get more students to do, particularly undergraduates is engaged with faculty members. I find that, you know, a lot of undergraduates are intimidated by faculty members and on I get it. You know, I was intimidated by faculty E. Yeah. A lot of them sometimes can still be very Yeah, real talk. Um, but, you know, I think that the office hours is one of the few places where you can kind of get started with some of these conversations. What? What kind of activities do you think students can engage in tow to really get these relationships like off the ground?

[0:16:15 Speaker 0] Yes. So there’s a great scholar named Tony Jack. He’s at Harvard. I work with Tony in the summertime and Tony’s got this great book called The Privileged Poor. It’s about basically, how do low income students of color and navigate university life. And he kind of talked about two groups. He talks about students who are low income, blah blah, blah. But they went to prep schools and kids went to public schools, right? So economize is those two groups, and one thing he talks about it. We don’t ever talk about how to use office hours. We just say,

[0:16:47 Speaker 2] No, we don’t office hours go for it. We’re like, Oh, you know, bring questions. But they don’t know what to ask questions about right Christian. And

[0:16:56 Speaker 0] so the thing that’s really interesting is that Hey, does this experiment and says, What do we do with office hours? Do we actually talk about? And so I started doing that and be explicit. So office hours you have a question about what happened in class. If you have a question about you know what’s coming up, your test your paper, you did whatever. That’s part of office hours, but it’s also I’m enjoying this class. What else should I be reading? Do you teach any other classes? Could you write a recommendation letter for me? It’s also that, and it’s part of our jobs as well. Listen, I don’t I don’t love the fact that this time of the year I used it to write, like, 50 rec letters. But I love doing it first of all, because I actually believe in these students. I think they’re great, and I want them to get the internship for the scholarship. But also, it’s part of my job right on. But I think sometimes we’ve kind of set this up. I know it’s different for classes that are large. If you have a class of 300 people, you may have a very prescriptive type of office. Our appointment. It’s 15 minutes. Come with your question as the ta first, but I’ve always told students I said, Listen, also remember that most of us work here multiyear contracts. So if you don’t talk to us when we’re in class with you, you may want to follow up Ah, following year. You know, you may want to come to see us and I actually have this kind of rule. I suggest to people. I say each class you’re in each semester try Thio, establish a relationship that’s going to be enduring with at least one of your faculty members. At least one you

[0:18:24 Speaker 2] know, you’re taking four

[0:18:25 Speaker 0] classes. Maybe Professor is kinda She’s kind of weird. You

[0:18:30 Speaker 2] know, Professor

[0:18:31 Speaker 1] B, you never feel right, Professor

[0:18:34 Speaker 0] C and D. You’re kind of like they seem kind of open. They seem like they’re interested. I’m doing well in the class. But I’ll tell you this. I think I might tell you a story before Phil. Um, there are examples that I think are really great. So many years ago, when I was when I was the coordinator of the master’s program in higher Ed, I got a letter of recommendation. It was from a professor and, I don’t know, maybe chemistry or something. And the first line of the letter was, you know, the student will never be a strong chemistry candidate, you know, they’ve got to see in my class, blah, blah, blah. But I got to know this young woman and she is the most student centered person you would know. I got to understand what she was interested in and I just work in the chemistry area. But my gosh, if you’re trying to get people to come to your program, we’re gonna work with students. She’s the one. So here’s somebody who got to see in the class getting one of the letters. I’m just like getting choked up reading. I’m like, Oh, my God, this is an amazing letter. So, you know, we often say, Well, the professor, you did well in that class. That’s your potential mentor. Not necessarily. It could be somebody who just have a connection to somebody you feel warm to. I had classes at U T. Where I didn’t perform well, but I thought the professor was really great. Uh, I’ll give you example, and this is not a class I didn’t perform. Well, I think you did Bones class, I think. But about two weeks ago, we did a Texas 25 like we did this thing for incoming potential students with John Daley. Okay, so John did was my professor when I was an undergraduate students. And he’s such a warm, nice person. You enjoy talking to him. He studies it makes

[0:20:11 Speaker 1] a favorite professor. Right?

[0:20:13 Speaker 0] But, you know, we were able to pick up where we left off, you know, years ago and you were talking about his daughter and what he’s up to. We have a favorite author and comments, and we’re talking about that. So just know that, you know, I think I have a slide. I use my presentations. I say, you know, professors, they get tickets, they’re in debt. Uh, they had arguments with their spouses to get frustrated with their kids. But they’re people too, right? And so I had the same kind of vision. Fila’s undergraduate. I thought that they were some exalted beings that sort of sprinkled wisdom and would walk away in the

[0:20:45 Speaker 1] e. I’m like, no. Is that how it is Not at all that you’re on the other side? E mean the

[0:20:52 Speaker 0] great thing I told you, my son turns 13 on Monday. And so I was just saying, I’m gonna have a teenager in the house on Monday advice and I had a bunch of people saying, Oh, my God, Move

[0:21:01 Speaker 1] out from the Foreign

[0:21:04 Speaker 0] Legion, you know, So we have these very human sort of connections, and obviously those are My peers were in the same place in life, more or less, but, you know, part of the experience, I think that’s really challenging. And higher education is that you’re aspiring to peer to peer identity, right? So you might be, you know, the young Muggle coming toe Hogwarts. But at some point, you’re gonna be a wizard. So you guys start thinking that way, right? So it’s something you’ve got to take the opportunity to start figuring out. I’m going to talk to that professor, and I’m going to find out about what they did. Or

[0:21:36 Speaker 2] how did they

[0:21:36 Speaker 0] end up doing this job? Because, um, office hours, another hint. This is your point, Christina. You know, you could easily say. Well, how did you get to do what you’re doing? You know? How did you end up here on all of us? Have no problem answering that question. In fact, you might regret asking the question. I have to leave.

[0:21:56 Speaker 2] No, no, no, no,

[0:21:57 Speaker 0] no. I wanna tell you about what happened to me my sophomore year on din fact, I often think that’s a big part of our stories because I don’t know many faculty members who came out of the womb wanting to be faculty members. Most of us had one of us. Did other things, had other careers. Many of us sort of stumbled into this because again, unless you have a parent who is a faculty member, it’s not necessarily something You walk around thinking Well, I’m going to be a fireman. I’m gonna be a police officer. I’m gonna be a professor. It doesn’t really fit,

[0:22:27 Speaker 2] right? Yeah. I think that I was really interested in when I got to college, because I was also first generation low income and I got to college. And I was like, How did you know that job existed? Like, how did you know you wanted to go into marketing or how did you know you wanted to be an accountant or anything? Because to me, I was like, You got Doctor. You got lawyer. You got fireman. You got policeman. You got nurse. What else is there? And so, just like the taste, So much creativity. It takes so much like background knowledge to know of all the opportunities that are available. And so I feel like for me, I had to play catch up with my peers like they had all these goals that they’ve been having and talking about for years. And I was just learning about them talking to, like, my mentors or my professors and just ranting to them. And they’re like, Well, you could do this and this and this And I was like, I didn’t know that existed. The job I do right now didn’t know it existed.

[0:23:24 Speaker 0] Yeah, Kristina so well said because I really think like you should be in sponge mode when you are at university, because you might have come there knowing that you wanted to be. I’m gonna be a lawyer, you know? It’s written in the stars gonna happen. Um, but for a lot of people, it’s like I don’t I don’t actually want to be a lawyer. Or I found out something about being a lawyer. That doesn’t really appeal to me. And the thing is, you just in time

[0:23:45 Speaker 1] in a law office, and it was talk terrible

[0:23:47 Speaker 2] weight that was actually me, though I turned a three law firm offices because I was like, it is written in the stars for me to become a lawyer and,

[0:23:57 Speaker 0] you know, being a first gen student, I think what it really is about is what we see in media, right? So we’re dependent on TV shows and movies to sort of move us. Eso Here’s all the time Like I saw this movie when I was a kid. So we see movies where people have those roles. We don’t see that many movies where there’s a professor. I know this Johnny Depp movie about being a professor. I saw that, uh, but there are prime time shows about professors. In fact, there’s gonna be a Sandra Oh, duck Netflix Serious about thinking.

[0:24:24 Speaker 2] My God. Of course I

[0:24:27 Speaker 0] know Now I was like, Oh, my gosh, that’s gonna be lip’s. You’re like, Professor, Let’s not interesting, of course. So I talked to my friends, you know who don’t work in our area there like that actually happened. Like, yes, ferpa can’t against your names, but yeah, something like that happen. So yeah, I mean, I think it’s a lot of exposure, So when you come to university, if you have a pre sort of predetermined path that you want to follow, it’s really good to go on these side alleys and kind of find out what else is out there and you know, you might have thought Well, the skills I have I like to write. I’d like to speak. That means I should be a lawyer. There

[0:25:02 Speaker 2] are a lot of

[0:25:03 Speaker 0] things that require those skills. Right. Um, you know, a lot of times I say in plan to my job is to convert pre law people to be to go to graduate school. In other words, Ah, lot of students wanted to go pre law, and they start talking about their interest in social justice. And, you know, and I’m like, you could do that law. Absolutely. But there’s actually fields of study where you could actually study that as the main thing you do on there, like like, get paid doing that. I’m like, you know, maybe not to send you get paid is a lawyer,

[0:25:31 Speaker 1] but it comes.

[0:25:32 Speaker 0] We know over time those salaries catch up. Um, but, you know, that’s that’s really important. I think First Gen students, in particular low income students in particular may not have those experiences and about knowing what a, you know, systems analyst does. And I was part of a program in high school. The Texas alliance from Minority Engineers that got me really sort of keyed up for engineering career, except I hit engineering. So it was like, This is great. I don’t do any of the stuff that’s really great. But at least I learned some things about networking and finding out who could help you and knowing there’s a network and a program in place to support. So it’s really funny, because I worked at Motorola for the first summer out of high school and people were just like, Why are you here? Clearly you know your functional. You’re funny. We like you. But this is not probably your field of endeavor way.

[0:26:25 Speaker 1] We’ve spent a lot of time kind of talking about faculty mentorship relationships. I kind of wonder what your thoughts are about pure mentorship relationships on how those Maybe you’re a little bit different on did you know, kind of not necessarily saying that one is better than the other, but just kind of what you might get from a pure mentorship opportunity versus you know something where there’s a little bit more separation between the mentor and the mentee, you know, particularly for like first year students, they definitely could use some mentorship from upper class students.

[0:27:00 Speaker 0] Yeah, I actually think the probably the type of mentorship that you experience the most at the university will be pure mentorship or near here. So if somebody is two years ahead of your year ahead of you or in your same class or even a class below you, right, because you’ll find, you know, mentoring is defined. Usually it’s somebody with more experience helping a person who has less experience. Experience is a very it’s not age dependent, right? There could be somebody with lots of experiences who’s much younger than you that could serve in that role and vice versa. So, yeah, we typically think about, you know, So you see enough my presentation to know that I probably will show a picture of Yoda and Luke E. Guess. Now we have the man, DeLorean and Baby Yoda right way. But you know, right, right, I gotta change the slides. Eso That’s kind of the trope, the archetype. But pure mentoring is actually something that a is more accessible. There’s much more peers available. Be, um, it’s probably more relevant, right? If I can talk to you about my experience going to college in the 19 nineties. You know, for someone with the school the same time you’re going through school, same experiences, you know, went to school during the pandemic, right? Those kinds of things, you can say this is really helpful to me. And one thing I talked about earlier and in passing, I want to really emphasize this issue of reciprocity, the idea that has a mentor and the mentee. It’s supposed to be a two way street. If you find yourself in a relationship, this is social exchange theory. You know, if you go in relationship and you’re always giving and this is a plot, this is true for anything romantic friendships, mentoring. If you’re always giving and getting nothing back, you lose interest. At some point, it’s just too much vice versa. If you’re in a relationship with somebody giving you a lot of stuff, you’re not everything back. You kind of feel your you know, unless you’re a user. You kind of feel like, you know, that’s kind of it. Doesn’t feel right. Feels weird, right? So you know, we worked this issue of reciprocity like we get together. I feel like you’re getting something from me. I’m getting something from you. Even it’s just like you being happy and excited because I’m giving you a reminder what it’s like to be in your first year. Or you’re kind of reminded me of what I was doing at that time when I was in school and vice versa. So I mentioned orientation and being our A. And of course, in those spaces I had amazing folks who are like the same year or year ahead of me who at that time, which is really funny when you’re in college, you know, being 18 and being 19 is that big, big gap, right? Being 19 and being 21 is a massive gap, right? Of course you know now it’s like, Oh, yeah, I’m 48 you know, I’m 45. 0, yeah, well, same age, you know, Of course, you realized no, we would have been, like, so different that time. So anyway, it’s really compressed developmental stage because so many things happen right in that period of time. So I think that’s super important. And obviously, going through experiences like some people are in a certain major and the sequence it’s hard to get into. So, having somebody who’s done that, who can kind of help you through that process and someone to kind of tell you the chill out right? I think it’s the most important thing that

[0:30:05 Speaker 1] Pearson dio, right? Right?

[0:30:08 Speaker 0] Like you’re going way too hard with this or you know you’re going way too hard with this and it’s not productive, right?

[0:30:13 Speaker 1] You know, it’s

[0:30:14 Speaker 0] it’s actually not doing good things for you. I don’t wanna make it sound like you shouldn’t go hard on a lot of things. But one of the things that you know we’ve come to realize is that Piers are really good at sort of saying to you Okay, I think it’s time to kind of take a break from this, or I think it’s time to talk to somebody because it sounds like you’re really having a tough time with this. And maybe it’s beyond my my ability to help, but, you know, zoo. Yeah, you’ll hear from somebody who’s your age versus the crystal professor like go to the CMHC, you know, it’s for like, you know, you should do what I did and I went to the CMHC and I got you know, some help through a hard situation s Oh, yeah, And I think a lot of the models we use it you tr peer based, you know? Uh huh. We really And of course there was. Reciprocity is fantastic because if you’re appear doing this, then a mentor you realize, Oh, my gosh, I have confidence. Like I felt that the first gen will income former probationers faras my academic status. I didn’t really know I was doing, but I’m talking to somebody who’s a few years beyond being below me, and that person really is benefiting from what I’m known. So I guess I do know some things, right? It reinforces your own identity as academic entity. Um, and people like Lauren don’t talk about sense of belonging on validation. So that happens when you are talking to somebody. And it happens to me even to the day when I go and talk to a group of students and you know, their first year students. And they’re 18. And I was thinking about this thing and I say, Well, do these five things like Dr Reddick, thank you so much. It actually helps me because I’m like, I know something like, I actually know the space. I can unpack some of the hidden stuff that’s going on out there, and it sort of a 10 year waits, my own imposter syndrome that I experience. Yeah, so that’s that’s a super important part of it is having peers and knowing that you’re gonna be in that role very quickly. And you might actually be a situation where you’re mentoring and being mentored at the same time, right?

[0:32:13 Speaker 2] I have a question for you, Dr Reddick. So I worked with a team of pure mentors, and each of them has anywhere between 6 to 8 mentees. And I always stressed to them, You know, we want you to be there for your mentees. We want you to be there for your students and support them. But remember that you’re not a therapist. Europe, your mentor and I know that they struggle with that boundary. And I know that when I was an undergrad and I was mentoring younger students, I really struggled with that, too. And, you know, I tell them like pour into yourself as much as you pour into other people. But obviously it’s easier said than done. Um, do you have any advice for older students who are a peer mentoring younger students and are just having a hard time drawing those boundaries of playing therapist?

[0:32:57 Speaker 0] Because I like what you said. You know, porn to others. What you comport to yourself that’s a great sort of moniker to use. So couple things about that. I think one thing is like you said, knowing when it’s I need to call in help Like I I can’t This situation is probably on my expertise right when somebody is dealing with really severe psychological challenges. You know, that’s probably we all know, like, you know, you need to talk to somebody who knows how to do this professionally, right? And so a lot of us, just like you said, It’s a Spidey sense. It’s like, Okay, this feels a little uncomfortable out of my wheelhouse, right? And that doesn’t mean you can’t have suggestions or advice for people, but haven’t been are. In a way, I’m really good at knowing. Okay, this is something that has gone to the next level. Um, but also toe help People understand that. You know, this is not a monogamous kind of situation. We actually encourage you to have multiple mentors like having a constellation of people you access for different issues is super important. So not to feel like there’s something wrong with having five people on campus. You can access toe ask questions because then it becomes you get different perspectives and you get and one thing I’ve done, which is really funny. Um, I study mentors, right? So when you study mentors, they tell me two things. Usually the first thing is like, Hey, rich, I want to tell you this, but I actually get more out of this than my mentee does. I’m having way more on the other things. I have to hear the insecurities of a mentor like my gosh, my mentee came to me and said, You know? So I go to grad school on the east coast of the West Coast. Tell me, why should Dio That’s a freaky question. Like I can’t be responsible for that, you know, you said in your life and emotion and ruining your life because you chose to go toe live in San Francisco set of Boston, but almost would be responsible for that, right? So what you end up doing is sort of understanding. It’s okay to sort of look to other people and say, you know, you’re one of many Goodbye talking do I trust And I want to ask this question. Um, it’s a lot less stress for the mentor to say, Oh, I know you’re gonna talk to five of the people. So let me tell you what I think. Don’t move to Boston. You know, uh, joking Boston’s great. Um, but you know, that’s a really important piece of it. I think also is just the sense that when you feel that it’s not benefiting you in the situation where you feel drained from the experience and doesn’t mean that everybody has hard times. So I’m not saying when you know when it gets rough bailout. But I’m saying if you feel repeatedly like you know, I don’t have the reserves to do this kind of work, then it’s time to start talking to your to your colleague and say, Look, I think what you need is something more than what I able to provide on. Then you also know the resource is our right part of being any kind of help, or is knowing the resource is the CMHC, the college advising team. You know, knowing the folks you can access to sort of say, you know, I think you’ll be good for you to talk to these folks and then following up, not just saying Go talk to somebody else. See you later. But, hey, did you have a chance to follow up and talk to those folks? Thio? You important? Yeah, because we don’t want to feel abandoned. We don’t wanna feel like Oh, sorry.

[0:36:14 Speaker 2] Send them away to somebody else. Do it later.

[0:36:18 Speaker 0] You know, I remember a situation when I was much, much younger when I was the r a. I had a student who was coming out the closet he was going to experience. And, you know, obviously there was some things I could certainly help with And some things I learned that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Um, but then also things like I don’t even know. I said, I honestly don’t know what do about that. And here’s some resource is I can think of. Here are some people I know you could talk Thio, but then Iowa’s was interested in Well, how did it go and that was one of my favorite sort of experiences I ever had because I’ve never been to a gate bookstore before. I had never been to the time when Dobie Mall had the theater, the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I’ve never been to that on there. I am like, you know, winning prizes like this is great. You know, eso that’s ever reciprocity I’m talking about. So there are things that you definitely can learn and do together, and there’s some things where it’s like, you know, coming out the closet is not something I haven’t personally experienced. You probably talk to somebody who’s done that, you know? But I want to know how that conversation went. You know, I don’t want to know if that person was helpful and I want to know if there’s some parts of that that I can relate to, you know, because I might have similar experiences of negotiating identity that might be worth talking about. So, yeah, that’s that’s what it’s really about. It it’s really about figuring out what are the proximal experiences that you’ve had a being marginalized? That might be helpful, but it also realizing that if you don’t have the experience. That’s exactly what person is talking about. It may be time to pull in somebody who does have that.

[0:37:48 Speaker 1] You’re right. Well, this has been amazing conversation. I think we’ve all learned a little bit more about both getting a mentor and being a mentor. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time out of your busy schedule. Doctorate IQ. I know you are one of those people on campus who just can’t say no when people ask you to do

[0:38:06 Speaker 2] something eso We’re in a pandemic. Learn how to say no except to our podcasting,

[0:38:14 Speaker 0] Right. But it’s really important. What you just said in a very nice way is like, Yeah, it’s important to know your limits are And it’s important to know I have learned that the great thing is that, you know, kids are a great sort of reminder of that. They will let me know if Dad is doing too much. I gotta put together step this weekend for a birthday on Monday. So that’s gonna be what I’m doing. And you know, every so often it’s easy to get caught up in things and those you have partners or dating somebody or those You have pets or good friends. Those air, great sort of reminders like, Hey, you know, we haven’t seen you in a while. Where have you been? And of course, we’re all gonna be in spaces where I got to really, you know, grind it out this week. I gotta work on something really intensely for a while. But if your pet doesn’t recognize you, um, if if

[0:39:01 Speaker 1] your friends are like, if your kid doesn’t recognize you, right, that’s really bad for that. You

[0:39:06 Speaker 0] must have a situation. I heard when I was in grad school, I had a classmate and I asked him, It’s like, You know, you’re so good at glass lecturing in classes, Why don’t you be Professor? And he’s like, you know, I was talking to one of my professors in grad school and I knew the professor Well, we’re gonna cook out of some kind on. I asked. His son was like, What do you think? Now your dad has gotten all these accolades. He’s like, Well, I like it now because now I’m getting know who he is. Three kid was like, 18 years old. He’s like, I don’t ever be like that. So he’s like, I want to spend time being a Cub Scout den leader or whatever. So, yeah, I mean, I think it’s important to know that each career path has intensity, but it’s really important to sort of figure out what your values are, what you care about and make sure you never fall too far out of that. Because we all have toe work with the work life balance thing. It’s it’s part of our lives. But, um, something hopefully that makes you feel restored and positive should be happening to you on a fairly regular basis.

[0:40:03 Speaker 1] Well, that’s how I feel about this conversation. I’m ready to get out there and find my next mentee, and I’m going to call you more often because I consider you one of my mentors. We’re gonna take one

[0:40:15 Speaker 0] day, get your drums out, and I’ll get my base and we’ll make some voice.

[0:40:19 Speaker 1] Thanks again. So much for taking the time to come out with us. We really appreciate

[0:40:25 Speaker 2] you so much. Dr. Etiquette was really, really awesome to meet you. What a fantastic interview. That was awesome, Guest. Thank you so much for inviting Dr Reddick. I’m so glad he came One

[0:40:41 Speaker 1] of the first people that came to my mind when we started doing this podcast. I knew I wanted to have him on to talk specifically about mentorship because I’ve heard him talk about it for years. And I knew he would do an awesome job,

[0:40:51 Speaker 2] and he did. I could totally see why you immediately thought of him. I was just There was so many thoughts going in my head. I had so many questions, I wanted to ask him. But I was just like I should keep these questions for later because he is going strong.

[0:41:05 Speaker 1] He’s a professor. Professors can talk. They really

[0:41:09 Speaker 2] can’t. They really can. I just had a meeting with a student today, and she was like, Yeah, I have this professor. I love this professor so much, but he never stops talking. And I was like, Wow, you know who you should go to for a mentor? That professor. Oh, my gosh.

[0:41:28 Speaker 1] Yeah, when he was talking about you know, sometimes the mentors get more out of this experience of trying to help people than the mentees get. I couldn’t help but feel seen or called out or whatever, because that’s a whole big part of why I do this job like, I want students to learn from my mistakes and, like I just nothing. Nothing is more satisfying to me than like seeing somebody graduate that I met when they were first year student, because you can see how much they’ve grown over there times 40 acres. And it does hits in the fields thinking about all the all the help that that’s out there, you know? And I know when I was a student, I didn’t realize that they were literally people on campus on campus whose job it was to help me. Yeah, that’s it. It’s just our job to help e.

[0:42:17 Speaker 2] Just I’ve only been at this job for a few months, and so I’ve only known these students for a few months. But just since meeting them at orientation until beginning of October, they have grown so much and it is such a rewarding job. And I am just so glad the doctor read aside that because even when I was in college and I was mentoring younger students in my major, it brought me so much joy whenever they would ask me questions. I was just like, Yes, I will answer all of your questions because it excites me that you have so many questions. So I think that mentorship relationship, it really is a two way street. And I’m glad he put it like that. I don’t know why I never really thought of it like that, but I just totally get that feeling of wanting to be a mentor, but also enjoying being a mentee as the at the same time.

[0:43:08 Speaker 1] Yeah, And for us that went to UT. Uh, we remember what it was like to step on campus or the register for your first class and how scary it might have been or how difficult it might have been. And in a way, for me, it’s like get e feel like there are a few times doctorate talked about, like, I wish I could talk to my 18 year old self or if I did. And I told him the things that I’ve done Hey, wouldn’t believe me like, that’s kind of how I see the opportunities I get with students like I literally can’t go back in time and talk to myself, but I can talk to this 18 19 year old whose in front of me or in my class, and help them avoid some of the dumb things that I did when I

[0:43:47 Speaker 2] was a student. Yes, that is also why I really appreciate mentors who are able to be vulnerable and transparent with our mentees. I think that vulnerability telling people this is where I messed up This is what was difficult for me. This is what I struggled with, really gives a lot of light to people who are going through that at that time. And so it, like I told my students all the time, They’re like, Oh, I got a grade back and it wasn’t as I expected. And I’m like, I got a zero on my first college exam because I didn’t wake up for it. And I am not under a bridge. As Misha from the last episode would say, I didn’t end up under a bridge. Nobody died. Exactly so like it just being vulnerable and being transparent, letting people know your struggles. I think it makes that relationship a lot more deeper and more organic as well.

[0:44:39 Speaker 1] Yeah, vulnerability and intimacy typically aren’t words. You associate with professional relationships. Yet here we are talking about those ideas and how they’re really cord to this idea of mentorship, and it really works. It’s best when those aspects are part of what you talk about with your

[0:44:59 Speaker 2] mental. Absolutely something else Dr Reddick brought up that I thought was very interesting is that he said, even though he is a black man and he certainly have had black male mentors, many of his mentors were women of color or white women. And I think that really goes to show that your mentor doesn’t need to be the exact person that you want to aspire to be in terms of identity, in terms of career, in terms of where they are in life. Your mentor should just be somebody who can offer you what you need and be there for you, someone who you have a connection with, you know, like they I think it would be useless for me to seek out a mentor who is an Asian woman. Specifically, I think that narrows the field out way too much, and I think that I we can have relationships with so many different types of mentors and You don’t need to limit yourself to your identity. You just need to think about who it is that you connect with the best,

[0:45:58 Speaker 1] Right? Right. Yeah. Hey, also talked about like students need to have this goal or not need to, but suggests that they have a goal of getting close with one faculty member per semester. I thought that was a really good, uh, homework quote unquote assignment for students is thio like, really try toe connect with at least one you know, out of your five. That’s not too difficult. I

[0:46:19 Speaker 2] hope you’ll usually have at least one cool professor in a course load of 12 to 15 hours.

[0:46:26 Speaker 1] And the other thing is too. Is just because you’re in their class in the fall doesn’t mean you can’t go meet with him in the spring like they’re not just your professor for just that semester. They are still a faculty member during your freshman year during your senior year, even after you graduate, you know, you could still kind of email untold Professor connect with a faculty member.

[0:46:45 Speaker 2] Yeah, we’re sure. Definitely very awesome, guest.

[0:46:51 Speaker 1] Well, I think that’s about all the time we have for this week. Thanks so much everyone for tuning into this sounds success. It’s been a great week. My name is Phil Butler.

[0:46:59 Speaker 2] I’m Christina Buoy. Thank you all so much. Have a great week