Mentoring Programmes
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Mentoring Programmes
In order to ensure competiveness and sustainability of universities, it is one of their central responsibilities to tap so far ignored potentials and to develop new concepts for excellent education. Especially young women are left to their own resources when realising their career plans. In order to successfully realise a scientific career, an efficient strategy can be developed in exchange with a supportive person who is more experienced in this field. This is where mentoring programmes usually start.
The term mentoring describes the engagement of an experienced person (Mentor) who passes on valuable knowledge to a less experienced person (Mentee) in a personal relationship in order to strengthen and promote the professional and personal development of the mentee.
The concept of a gender equal approach to human resources development through the instrument mentoring was developed by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Carmen Leicht-Scholten in order to specifically attract and promote high qualified female scientists on different career levels. One focus lies in the individual promotion of junior scientists in natural and engineering science. Since the implementation of the first mentoring programme TANDEM in 2002 there are currently 7 mentoring programmes for different target groups at RWTH Aachen.
All mentoring programmes of RWTH Aachen are based on training, workshop (e.g. career building, leadership seminars) and networking modules. RWTH Aachen University offers the classical version of one-to-one-mentoring: in this version junior scientists are professionally and personally supported by one experienced mentor. Good personal contacts and functioning work alliances are in the forefront of a mentoring relationship. For the period of one year the mentors advise, give feedback, support the mentees in the development of potentials, competencies and strategies and give impulses for the personal development.
Furthermore, RWTH Aachen offers accompanying education modules (seminars, workshops, etc.) which are customised to the needs of the particular target group. All mentoring programmes comprise network modules in order to strengthen the network of the mentees in the scientific community. The mentors also have the opportunity to network.
The joint objective of all mentoring programmes at RWTH Aachen is to individually support the mentees and to encourage them to pursue a scientific career. At the same time the programmes take the specific requirements of the different target groups into account.
| Target Group | Programmes |
|---|---|
| High school students with an interest in mathematics, informatics, natural science and technology (MINT) | TANDEMkids (7th to 9th Grade) TANDEMschool (11th to 13 th Grade) |
| Female graduate students | TANDEMmed (for the medical faculty) TANDEM (all fields of study, except for medicine) |
| Female PhD-students | TANDEM (all fields of study, except for medicine) TANDEMplus (engineering and natural sciences) |
| Female postdocs | TANDEMplus (engineering and natural sciences) TANDEMpeerMED (for the medical faculty) TANDEMplusMED (for the medical faculty) TANDEMplusIDEA (completed in 2010) |