Improving Academic Performance and Retention of First-Year Biology Students through a Scalable Peer Mentorship Program

This study evaluates the performance of a near-peer mentoring program for first-year biology majors. The program’s intention is to improve student retention generally, and academic and soft skills more specifically. The effect of the program was investigated via ethnographic methods, a program-specific survey, and regression analyses.

South-to-south mentoring as a vehicle for implementing sustainable health security in Africa

Background While sustainability has become a universal precept in the development of global health security systems, supporting policies often lack mechanisms to drive policies into regular practice. ‘On-paper’ norms and regulations are to a great extent upheld by frontline workers who often lack the opportunity to communicate their first-hand experiences to decisionmakers; their role is an often overlooked, yet crucial, aspect of a sustainable global health security landscape. Initiatives and programs developing transdisciplinary professional skills support the increased bidirectional dialogue between these frontline workers and key policy- and decisionmakers which may sustainably narrow the gap between global health security policy design and implementation. Methods The International Federation of Biosafety Associations’ (IFBA) Global Mentorship Program recruits biosafety and biosecurity champions across Africa to provide local peer mentorship to developing professionals in their geographic region. Mentors and mentees complete structured one year program cycles, where they are provided with written overviews of monthly discussion topics, and attend optional virtual interactive activities. Feedback from African participants of the 2019–2020 program cycle was collected using a virtual Exit Survey, where aspects of program impact and structure were assessed. Results Following its initial call for applications, the IFBA Global Mentorship Program received considerable interest from professionals across the African continent, particularly in East and North Africa. The pilot program cycle matched a total of 62 individuals from an array of professional disciplines across several regions, 40 of which were located on the African continent. The resulting mentorship pairs shared knowledge, skills, and experiences towards translating policy objectives to action on the front lines. Mentorship pairs embraced multidisciplinary approaches to harmonize health security strategies across the human and animal health sectors. South-to-South mentorship therefore provided mentees with locally relevant support critical to translation of best technical practices to local capacity and work. Conclusion The IFBA’s South-to-South Global Mentorship Program has demonstrated its ability to form crucial links between frontline biosafety professionals, laboratory workers, and policy- and decision-makers across several implicated sectors. By supporting regionally relevant peer mentorship programs, the gap between health security policy development and implementation may be narrowed.

A Vertical Peer Mentorship Model to Promote Early Career Development: Implementation and Initial Outcomes

Mentorship is critical for career enhancement and professional development among early career researchers in the behavioral sciences. However, many barriers exist to securing appropriate mentorship, including inadequate supply of advanced mentors, inconsistent quality of mentorship, and diverse mentorship needs. Additionally, there are few training experiences that provide an opportunity to learn effective mentorship approaches and techniques. Vertical peer mentorship programs can provide one potential solution to these common mentorship pitfalls. In this approach, slightly more advanced early career professionals (e.g., post-doctoral fellows) provide mentorship to more junior colleagues (e.g., graduate students), permitting opportunities for both mentorship and mentorship training within the same dyad. Here, we detail one such early career vertical peer mentorship program developed within a subspecialty of psychology (eating disorders). We provide details about the iterative process of developing and refining this program to support mentor and mentee goals. We also provide initial program evaluation data from a subsample of participants completing post-program assessments (n = 109) that indicates that the program was highly acceptable (M = 8.22, SD = 4.25 acceptability on a 10-point Likert scale) and generative of early career productivity (producing > 25 manuscripts published or under review and > 21 conference abstracts) in its initial four years. This manuscript serves to provide a model for developing a successful vertical peer mentorship program and to encourage research in the under-investigated area of efficacious mentorship practices.