A Comprehensive Pilot Mentoring Program at the University of California, San Francisco

1
A Comprehensive Pilot Mentoring Program at
theUniversity of California, San Francisco

• NPA Meeting, March 11-12, 2005, San Diego
• Christine Des Jarlais, EdD
• Assistant Dean for Postdoctoral Affairs
• James Kahn, MD
• Center for AIDS Research, Associate Director
• CFAR Mentoring Program Director Faculty
  Mentor
• Jutta Neuenburg, MD
• CFAR Postdoctoral Scholar Mentee

2
Agenda

• Introduction and overview
• Description of mentoring program by faculty
  director
• Experiences of postdoc mentee
• Experiences of faculty mentor
• Experiences of program administrator
• QA

3
The UC Context

• UC 10-campus system wide postdoc policy (APM 390)
  implemented July 1, 2003
• Over 5,000 postdocs at UC
• APM 390 mandates that all Postdocs be treated
  equitably regardless of funding source
• APM 390 explicitly addresses mentoring

4
University of California APM 390

• Faculty mentors are responsible for guiding and
  monitoring the advanced training of Postdoctoral
  Scholars. In that role, faculty mentors should
  make clear the goals, objectives, and
  expectations of the training program and the
  responsibilities of Postdoctoral Scholars. They
  should regularly and frequently communicate with
  Postdoctoral Scholars, provide regular and timely
  assessments of the Postdoctoral Scholars
  performance, and provide career advice and job
  placement assistance.

5
The UCSF Context

• About 820 postdocs at UCSF 55 are
  international 46 are women
• Office of Postdoctoral Affairs
• Career and Professional Development Services
  Office
• Active Postdoctoral Scholars Association
• Member of MentorNet

6
The UCSF Context (cont)

• Academic Senate Task Force on Mentoring
• Three major recommendations
• Mentoring should be made mandatory
• Establish a central mentoring office
• Establish a permanent advisory committee
• UCSF committed to developing a culture of
  mentoring

7
The UCSF Context (cont)

• Currently, departments are encouraged to develop
  mentoring programs
• Different mentor program models available
• Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) among the best
  began Fall 2004

8
The Program Directors Perspective UCSF-GIVI
Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) Pilot Mentoring
ProgramJames O. Kahn, MD
9
Mission
UCSF-GIVI CFAR Center for AIDS Research

• to support a multi-disciplinary research
  infrastructure that promotes basic, clinical,
  epidemiological, behavioral, and translational
  research in the prevention, detection, and
  treatment of HIV infection and AIDS

10
UCSF-GIVI CFAR Mission

• Our Center provides direct funding support for
  novel translational studies and administrative
  services to assist investigators in writing and
  reviewing grant applications to federal agencies
  (NIH, CDC, NSF) and private foundations.

11
UCSF-GIVI CFAR Structure
Basic
Clinical
Epi/Pop/Behav
12
UCSF-GIVI CFAR Structure

• Clinical

Basic
Epi/Pop/Behav
CFAR
13
Why Develop a CFAR-Organized HIV/AIDS-Specific
Mentoring Program?

• Mentoring by UCSF faculty identified as area for
  improvement
• CFAR committed to developing next generation of
  investigators to lead research enterprise
• Mentoring of individuals in HIV/AIDS is complex
• Required by infrastructure grant and viewed with
  increasing importance by NIH

14
NIH Funding is Key

• CFAR is a key program at UCSF and GIVI
• Funding agency has large role in components of
  CFAR system
• Requiring mentoring was a forcing function to
  retain grant
• Provided mechanism to recruit mentors

15
Program Directors Perspective Carrot and Stick

• Mentoring is important and mentors tend to
  receive funding from CFAR either as a core
  director, or their mentees compete for CFAR
  funding
• Easy to participate in a program rather than
  establish a program
• Mentoring, like teaching, is a growing focus for
  promotions committees

16
Program Directors Perspective Mentoring at
UCSF-Disincentives

• Mentoring not consistently recognized
• Faculty have little time even with needed
  inclination
• Mentoring is not uniform
• Identifying good mentoring is difficult
• Increasing mentoring skills for faculty is not
  consistently supported

17
Program Directors Perspective Ideal Qualities
for Mentors

• Shares experiences and draws out knowledge
• Introduces skills or connections to others if and
  when appropriate
• Hopes for, but does not insist on, tangible
  results
• Conducts relationship on one-to-one basis
  independently of school or teachers
• Keeps in touch with CFAR staff, giving progress
  reports, on an informal basis
• Completes evaluation forms

18
(No Transcript)
19
Program Directors Perspective Is This a
Different Program?

• Consistent with established process and
  complementary to planned programs
• Measurable outcomes
• Can identify new candidates
• Can modify program in subsequent years as we
  learn how to provide better mentoring

20
Program Directors Perspective Program Objectives

• Develop model that fosters mentoring to encourage
  postdocs and junior faculty to have successful
  careers focused on HIV and AIDS
• Complement other mentoring programs
• Provide ongoing evaluation of key mentoring
  endpoints
• Expand program if meeting needs of mentees and
  mentors
• Enhance skill level for mentors

21
Program Directors Perspective Program Elements

• Focused on 11 mentoring between well established
  CFAR faculty and identified junior investigators
  at postdoc or junior faculty level
• Seminar series open to all who wish to attend
• Evaluation phase

22
Program Directors Perspective One-on-One
Mentoring

• Expectations mentors and mentees meet once a
  month
• Mentor does NOT take place of PI or clinic
  director
• Mentor focuses on career guidance such as
• What is nature of mentees research?
• What milestones does mentee expect to meet?
• Does mentee need help with networking (inside or
  outside UCSF)?
• What personal issues is mentee facing and does
  mentee need help or understanding?

23
Program Directors Perspective One-on-One
Mentoring

• Two mentors for each mentee
• Mentors can contact other mentor and consider
  joint meeting
• First meetings in November
• Mentors encouraged to attend seminar series
• Director kept in loop regarding one-on-one
  meetings

24
Program Directors Perspective Seminar Series

• Mentees expected to attend seminars
• Mentors may invite persons from their group who
  may benefit
• Reception at end of the year

25
2004-05 Seminar Specifics

• Crash Course on HIV Mentoring Panelists
• Submitting Your First Grant at UCSF
• Human Subjects, Internal Review, Fiscal Oversight
• Life and Work Issues
• Career Development First Appointment and
  Promotions

• October 27th
• November 17th
• December 8th
• January 27th
• March 3rd

26
Seminar Specifics (cont)

• NIH Funding Opportunities, Peer Review and Grant
  Writing
• Industry-Sponsored Research
• Capitalizing on Seminar Presentations
• Review Process for Scientific Journals
• Mentoring Program Receptions

• March 16th
• April 6th
• April 27th
• May 25th
• June TBD

27
Program Directors Perspective Challenges

• External review feedback
• Suggested CFAR focus more on furthering HIV
  research
• Questioned merit of having non-supervising
  mentors
• Recommended program focus on mentoring those with
  intent and capacity to successfully compete for
  RO1s
• Excludes persons with bright ideas but limited
  paper CVs.
• Would this limit diversity?

28
Program Directors Perspective Challenges (cont)

• Do we have the best read-out on the program?
• Satisfaction
• Connection
• What about issues such as manuscripts, grants,
  or promotions?
• What is the value added for a mentoring program?

29
Program Directors Perspective Future Activities

• Complete present pilot program
• Analyze measured outcomes
• Determine changes that should be made in the next
  year for current mentees
• Develop second-year mentoring program to include
  peer-to-peer mentoring
• Use new technologies such as Blogs
• Bridge to other CFARs

30
Mentee Demographics

• Seven women and four men
• Average age is 35
• UC appointment
• 5 Postdocs
• 5 Assistant Professors
• 1 Research Scientist
• Research area 4 Basic 7 Clinical 4 Behavioral
  
• (with mixing)
• Six of eleven feel they are on track and have a
  clear plan for training and career goals

31
Mentees Self-Assessment of Needs

• A significant obstacle at this point is figuring
  out how to balance personal and professional
  demands.
• Id like outside advice on my project and
  career plans. Perhaps a letter of support when I
  enter the job market.
• I would like to get help finding the right job
  for me.
• I need help with my papers, my grants and my
  future research design.
• I think this program is a very good idea. My
  thesis committee was a helpful source of advice
  in graduate school, and this program could be
  helpful in a similar way.

32
Linking Mentors and Mentees

• Assignments provide a broad range of
  investigators with diverse experiences to the
  mentees
• Can accommodate one or two new mentees each year
• Re-assignments are possible

33
A Postdocs Perspective UCSF-GIVI Center for
AIDS Research (CFAR) Pilot Mentoring Program

• Jutta K. Neuenburg, MD

34
UCSF Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) Mentoring
Program

• Presentation points
• The postdoc experience / CFAR Mentoring Program
• Including personal experiences being a mentee
• Difficulties with the program
• How to overcome difficulty
• Overall assessment

35
Introduction Jutta K. Neuenburg

• Clinical Neurologist 1993 1999
• Responsible consulting neurologist for
• HIV outpatient and inpatient clinics,
• University of Frankfurt, Germany
• Research at UCSF since 2000
• Department of Neurology
• Gladstone Institute for Virology and Immunology

36
UCSF Center for AIDS Research Mentoring Program

• My Mentors
• Teri Liegler, Ph.D. FEMALE
• Associate Director,
• Gladstone-UCSF Laboratory of Clinical Virology
• David Bangsberg, M.D., M.P.H. MALE
• Associate Professor of Medicine in Residence
• Director, Epidemiology and Prevention
  Interventions Center

37
The Postdoc Experience /CFAR Mentoring Program

• Why is it good to have a mentor?
• Being a postdoc can be very lonely
• If you are starting out, you need encouragement,
  especially when you are changing careers
• If things go right, you probably wont receive
  praise
• If things go wrong, you will hear criticism

38
The Postdoc Experience /CFAR Mentoring Program

• It is important to have a mentor who is not
  directly tied to you
• Since you dont spend her/his money, and her/his
  success is not directly tied to your success, the
  advice is likely to be unbiased
• This increases the trust that you have in the
  mentor

39
The Postdoc Experience /CFAR Mentoring Program

• Most likely, no one tells you what is expected of
  you
• Just working hard is not the answer
• If you have a well-meaning mentor, months of your
  time can be saved
• A mentor may be a better source of judgment than
  a PI
• e.g. A lab technique might need to be abandoned
  because it is not going to lead to papers or
  insights
• Or you need to continue despite difficulties
• Perhaps you just need encouragement to keep
  going.

40
The Postdoc Experience /CFAR Mentoring Program

• You need to be told that the only things that
  count are
• PAPERS and GRANTS
• Forget posters, reviews, book chapters

41
CFAR Mentoring Program Experience I

• My female mentor told me to write a grant
• At the time I thought I am not capable of this
• My grant was the only one that got funded in this
  cycle (intramural grant)
• Without her encouragement, I wouldnt even have
  tried

42
Internal Review and Human Subjects Workshop
Experience II

• Presentation from UCSF CHR (Committee on Human
  Research) director
• Ethical issues of my project were discussed after
  presentation
• 3 weeks later a funding issue arises question
  whether my funded study is covered under my PIs
  CHR approval form

43
Internal Review and Human Subjects Workshop
Experience II (cont)

• I am informed that an e-mail from the director of
  CHR (confirming my coverage) is sufficient to
  release funds
• I quickly drafted an email to the CHR director
  she remembered my project and I received the
  confirmation e-mail the next day
• This issue was resolved much more quickly because
  of personal contact than other issues that
  sometimes take months

44
CFAR Mentoring Program - Problems

• Biggest problem
• Your mentor needs to free up some time, which is
  the most difficult part of the mentoring program
• Lesser problems
• Sometimes it is difficult to attend meetings
  because they are at a different campus location
• You have so many meetings and presentations and
  journal clubs that it is difficult to add more

45
CFAR Mentoring Program Solutions

• If your mentor is official, it is much easier
  for you to request her/his time
• You can ask the director of the mentoring program
  to remind your mentor
• Or you can call the mentor on her/his commitment
  to the mentoring program

46
CFAR Mentoring Program Experience III

• In my personal experience, the director of the
  mentoring program reminded my mentor sweetly by
  e-mail
• A few days later, I spent a full hour with my
  mentor showing him my data, which was great

47
CFAR Mentoring Program Experience III (cont)

• After this session, I e-mailed my specific aims
  for my next grant to my mentor, who could make
  sense of them after seeing my data
• My mentor worked on them with me in 4 days and
  now they are done
• Prior to the CFAR Mentoring Program, I had
  e-mailed my specific aims to my PI several times
  without reply
• because of the CFAR Mentoring Program I had a
  new mechanism to get professional feedback

48
Conclusions

• Being a mentee is great!

49
Mentor and Mentee
50
Acknowledgements
Gladstone Institutes Teri Liegler

• UCSF
• David Bangsberg
• Jim Kahn

University of Frankfurt, Germany Reinhardt Brodt
Eilke Helm Wolfgang Schlote
51
Funding

• Universitywide AIDS Research Program Fellowship
  Grant UARP F04-SF-215
• C-ARC CC02-SF-002 Center for AIDS Research
• Pilot (Grant) Innovative Grant Program
  (Neuenburg)
• R01 NS37660-02 R01 MH 62701-01 (Price)
• Gladstone Institute of Virology Immunology

52
The Mentors Perspective UCSF-GIVI Center for
AIDS Research (CFAR) Pilot Mentoring Program
James O. Kahn, MDProfessor of Medicine
53
Mentor PerspectiveWhy be a Mentor?

• Important part of faculty life
• Has value for future of research
• Mentoring contributes to the research community
  at UCSF to which the mentor belongs
• Fulfills needs of granting agency
• Fulfills requirements of promotion committees
• Fun!

54
Mentor Perspective Work Load

• Organizing the mentoring program requires
  specific funding to free up the time to design,
  implement, follow through and evaluate the
  program
• One-on-one mentoring requires specific meeting
  time (e.g., 8 am for coffee)
• Requires time to review grants and manuscripts
• Requires time to make connections between mentees
  and others

55
Mentor Perspective Satisfaction

• Successful mentoring creates satisfaction for an
  academically-focused career
• New manuscripts
• New grants
• New collaborations
• Satisfaction (or even happiness) for mentee
• Satisfaction for mentor

56
Mentor Perspective Helping to Develop Mentees

• Judgment is ultimately based on experience, but
  mentoring can accelerate development of judgment
• Mentoring can extend chances for success to
  mentees who have talent and drive, but lack
  confidence or experience
• Mentees desperately need support for academic
  success

57
(No Transcript)
58
Administrative Perspective Tips

• Frequent correspondence with mentees
• (Less frequent) correspondence with mentors
• Establish mentoring website
• Ongoing coordination of monthly workshops
  calendar, speakers, publicity, pre-registration,
  food
• Ongoing collaboration w/ program directors

59
Conclusions

• Program Goal reduce mentees isolation and
  facilitate professional socialization
• Formal mentoring programs provide mentees with
  crucial avenues for contact with faculty
• Faculty buy-in is key
• Top down (senior administration) and bottom up
  (active postdoc association) are key

60
Useful Websites

• Center for AIDS Research Pilot Mentoring Program
• http//cfar.ucsf.edu/mentoring
• UCSF Office of Postdoctoral Affairs Mentoring
  Resources (http//postdocs.ucsf.edu)
• http//student.ucsf.edu/postdocs/information_for_
  prospective_and_current_postdocs/mentoring_resourc
  es.html

61
Useful Websites (cont)

• UCSF Gladstone Institutes Postdoc Mentoring
  Program
• http//www.gladstone.ucsf.edu/gladstone/site/post
  doc/section.php?id938
• UCSF Academic Senate Mentoring Task Force
  Executive Summary
• http//www.ucsf.edu/senate/2002-2003/v3-MTF-05-27
  -03-ExecSum.pdf

62
Useful Websites (cont)

• Mentoring and PI Productivity
• http//nextwave.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2
  003/11/04/1
• UCSF Guidelines to Faculty for Preparing a CV
  for Academic Review (e.g., appointments,
  promotions, merit advancements, appraisals for
  promotion, etc.) (includes how to document
  mentoring activities)
• http//acpers.ucsf.edu/callforactions/doc_cvguide
  lines2004.pdf

63
Contact Information

• Christine Des Jarlais
• desjarlais_at_saa.ucsf.edu
• Jim Kahn
• jkahn_at_php.ucsf.edu
• Jutta Neuenburg
• jneuenburg_at_gladstone.ucsf.edu

64
Acknowledgements

• Loren Dobkin
• Program Analyst, Extraordinaire
• ldobkin_at_cfar.ucsf.edu

65
Questions???