1. Description
Peer mentorship, where individuals with similar experiences or positions guide and support each other, offers several benefits to both mentors and mentees. Peers often understand each other’s situations, challenges, and perspectives better than someone at a different stage of life or career. This shared perspective can make advice more relevant and actionable. Graduated scholars have first-hand knowledge of the challenges, opportunities, and nuances of the DECREE program, making their advice highly valuable for newcomers. Additionally, seeing the success and growth of alumni mentors can serve as motivation for current scholars, showing them the potential outcomes of their participation in DECREE VI.
Download the Peer-Mentor Application form here.
2. Mentor’s Presentation Session
To be conducted on October 26th.
Peer Mentors will conduct a thematic session to present inspiring aspects of their expertise, such as:
- Professional career
- Academic background
- Research projects/areas of interest
- Military career
- Leadership roles
These sessions will take place each time a new mentor joins the program.
3. Meetings
Each scholar will meet their mentor twice between Oct. 30th and Dec. 15th Meetings will be scheduled in advance with the support of the Virtual Institute
These one-on-one meetings can be held online or in person, according to the mentor’s and mentee’s preference.
The following items describe the objectives of the periodic mentor-mentee meetings:
- Continue understanding the mentee’s goals and motivations.
- Set/follow up on realistic and measurable career objectives.
- Set/follow up on leadership challenges.
- Review the mentee’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Follow the plan of action.
After each meeting, scholars will report a brief summary of the session to be tracked by the Virtual Institute.
4. Peer Mentor’s Commitment Estimation and hour rate
We expect each peer mentor to commit ~20 hours of their time from Sept. 30th to Dec. 15th.
- The hour rate for peer-mentor is $24/hour.
- Mentor’s presentation session & preparation (3 hours)
- 3 scholars with 3 follow-up meetings (3 scholars x 1.5 hours = ~14 hours)
- Scholars’ follow-up meetings & preparation & report (1 hour per scholar = 3 hours)