We’re celebrating January's National Mentoring Month this year with a new program. Launched this fall, the Student-Alumni Mentorship Program is well underway and already making an impact.
“We’ve had peer-to-peer mentorship programming between first and second-year students in our school for more than fifteen years,” Director of Career and Professional Development Emmy Griffith explained. “We also pair students in our DC Semester with an alumni mentor during that experience and bring alumni to campus for things like resume workshops and coffee chats throughout the year. However, we felt that there’s been a need and a desire to provide opportunities for current students to engage with alumni in a more meaningful way,” she shared.
The new program was developed as a partnership between Griffith’s department and Director of Development Nicole Madden. It was designed to stand alongside existing career development and mentorship opportunities, fostering meaningful connections and providing valuable guidance and career support to students as they prepare for life after graduation.
“We see it as a progression of our existing programming around mentorship and professional development,” Griffith said. “Students who have had a peer mentor their first year have gone on to be a mentor in their second year, and now those same students can continue to be mentored by alumni who have been through the process and are now out working in the field.”
Griffith invited all rising second-year students to apply and complete a survey gauging their interests and career goals, while Madden connected with alumni about their capacity to serve as mentors for the upcoming school year. The pair considered geographic factors and field of study when finding the right fit for the partnerships, eventually connecting interested students with their new mentors over the summer months.
The student and alumni participants are asked to meet in person or virtually at least once per month throughout the academic year. Students set the agenda for each for a thirty-to-sixty-minute conversation, allowing them to outline topics they think would be beneficial to discuss and get their mentors relevant information to go over ahead of time.
What are students saying about the program? Here’s some feedback from Ana Thais Safe Carneiro (MPPM ’25) who was connected with alumnus Felipe Macia (MPIA ‘93), who works as Principal Investment Officer at IDB Invest, part of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) group.
“We met virtually and had a very interesting conversation about his work at the IDB,” shared Carneiro. “Afterward, Felipe was kind enough to virtually introduce me to one of his colleagues at the Bank and I sent an email to her sharing a little of my professional background. Felipe was amazing: open, interested in my professional goals, and a pleasure to talk to.”
There will be a wrap-up event for this year’s participants towards the end of the semester, allowing mentors and mentees to connect in person (when possible) and continue to network while sharing about their experiences. Students interested in being a part of the Student-Alumni Mentorship Program next year will receive an email with application information later this spring.