Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico

1)  Kate, could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?

Hello Michael.  Thanks for inviting me to answer a few questions about the importance and impact of mentoring.  I have spent the last 25 years working to help young people identify and realize their potential.  I have worked with middle school, high school and college aged students who were in a process of discovering who they were and determining their own personal value system in order to live creative and meaningful lives.  

In 1990, I co-founded Artists for Humanity in Boston and worked with middle and high school students in an art and entrepreneurship program.  We discovered very quickly that young people are tremendously capable of making good decisions for themselves if they are surrounded by caring adults and are given the knowledge, tools and responsibility to truly and fully participate in the world around them.  Too often young people are simply told what to do.  It’s critical that they understand their choices and are allowed to make decisions around those choices.  Over the past couple of decades I have engaged hundreds of young people in programs to help them discover their passions and take action to realize their dreams.
 
2) Now, how did you get involved with mentoring?  

I joined the icouldbe.org Board of Directors in 2002 and became the Chair of the Board in 2003.  This was my first foray into the mentoring world specifically, even though all of my previous work focused on very similar goals and outcomes.  I remained on the Board until 2005 when I was asked to become the Executive Director.  Since that time I have focused on using technology to scale up the positive impacts of the more common face-to-face mentoring programs with which we are all familiar.  It has been my personal mission to make mentoring available to any young person who wants a mentor and could benefit from that relationship.  Too often mentoring organizations reach their capacity and cannot serve all the young people they’d like to.  Technology and online mentoring removes those capacity barriers, as well as any geographic location, time, and safety barriers that exist in face-to-face mentoring programs.   Early on in my tenure at icouldbe.org, I determined that a research-backed curriculum that focused on activities that can engage mentors and mentees in relationship and trust building activities as well as measurable activities that promote academic achievement, career awareness, college (and all types of post-secondary education) preparation and financial literacy.

3) Kate, I have set up formal mentor programs, and I have also informally mentored many of my students. What are the pros and cons of formal mentoring programs that specifically match one person with another?  

While informal mentoring programs hold the power to make enormous changes in people’s lives – and I believe strongly in informal mentoring programs – more formal mentoring programs provide an opportunity for young people to practice their mentee and potential future mentor skills.   By this I mean that while our students at icouldbe.org are gaining highly valuable skills and knowledge around important academic, career and college issues we also help them practice networking skills.  For example, throughout our curriculum students work with their mentors on activities that require them to look to their personal contacts of family members, teachers, coaches and others to invite in as college application essay reviewers or as references to list on their resumes.  The purpose of these exercises is to expand the student’s view to see all of the people they already have in their lives that could be considered informal mentors.  Students will take these lessons throughout their lives so that no matter where they find themselves, they have the skills and desire to seek out mentors – and hopefully will be great mentors themselves.  
 
4) What should a person be aware of before they enter into a mentor relationship?

I believe the most important aspect of being in a mentoring relationship is that you must put your own ego, biases and judgments away.  When helping another person through a personal journey there are no right or wrong turns.  Helping them see the options and guiding a process to ensure they have thought through those options, as well as the repercussions of going down a particular road, is all about the mentee – NOT the mentor.   
 
5) Often, mentor relationships ” just happen”. A science teacher notes a student’s interest in a topic and encourages, prompts, pushes, cajoles and assists the younger protege. Anything wrong with that picture?

Not at all!  I have personally benefitted from these types of mentors in my own life and would not be the person that I am had I not had such remarkable people show up in my life at the perfect moment to help me.  It is just this type of relationship that we help the students learn to look for and engage in after they practice and get comfortable with the concept.  
 
6) Some mentors encourage, others assist with networking, and still others coach. What other avenues or behaviors are involved in mentoring?

The exciting developments in mentoring for me is the work we’re doing at icouldbe.org to engage mentors to help at-risk high school students understand not only the external factors that are influencing their academic achievement but also to guide them through meaningful conversations to identify what internal attitudes and beliefs they hold that may be influencing their behavior in the classroom and in their lives.  When a measurable and meaningful set of activities or curricula is in place throughout a mentoring relationship it is possible to see demonstrable impact.  Again, informal mentoring that provides support, coaching and networking is a wonderful benefit to mentees and mentors alike, but the addition of definable skill-building and knowledge-building dramatically increases the already powerful effects of traditional mentoring.  
 
7) In my mind, we simply have to mentor beginning teachers. What should school systems be doing in this regard?

There are wonderful examples of peer-to-peer mentoring programs for young teachers.  In Toledo, OH new teachers are provided with mentors throughout their first year with great success for the teachers and, most importantly, the students.  The teachers also use a peer review system so they become an important part of the process.  I think that’s the very best mentoring can do.  Mentoring invites mentees into a process, whether it be to advance their career, improve skills, or simply to expand their horizons.  It’s within this process of inviting people to the table that changes lives.  When we remove the “us vs. them” and transform relationships to the “we” anything becomes possible for individual success and achievement.  
 
Who are some of the individuals that have written about mentoring that have influenced you?

 I would suggest that my influencers are not academics or writers who focused on mentoring, but thought-leaders who focus on human relationships in all forms.   Robert Coles, Joseph Campbell, the Dalai Lama and Thomas Merton are particular favorites.
 
9) I often discussed the field of mentoring with Paul Torrance, who wrote an exemplary book on mentoring. What are some of the key books in the field that you consider to be of importance?

How about… When working with young people who are at great risk of dropping out – of school or society – how can mentoring change the course of their lives?  

Our findings at icouldbe.org suggest that we have the most positive and significant impact on those students who self-identify as hopeless.  These bright, young individuals, who at 9, 10 or 11 years old could see themselves reaching for the moon, are now filled with apathy and nothingness at 14, 15 and 16.  Is it the school systems that fail them?  Perhaps, possibly, their own parents don’t have the time or resources to support them academically or emotionally, or maybe society has already given up on them and they’re just beginning to realize it.   Whatever the cause, the repercussions are clear:  50% dropout rates for Black and Hispanic students, increased drug use, teen pregnancy, truancy, violence and all types of behavior that lead to unfulfilled dreams and lost potential.   Mentoring, however, can change that.  Mentoring, in fact, is the embodiment of hope.  And hope is the precursor to success.