Main Content
The Milgard Women's Initiative(MWI) Mentoring Program is designed for early to mid-career students, particularly those who are the first in their families to attend college and international students, to explore issues women face in their careers and to engage with a mentor outside their usual networks.
Mentors are drawn from the community of executive women leaders across the Puget Sound community.
The MWI Mentoring Program is recruiting mentors for the 2024/25 academic year!
2024-2025 Registration is open!
2024-2025 Registration
Our Mentor & Mentee registration for the 2024-2025 academic year is open!
Interested mentees and mentors should fill out the respected Registration Forms.
For questions, contact clsr@uw.edu
Mentor Profile
Mentors are an important part of personal and professional development. They are guides through times when people need someone who can point them in the right direction. Great mentors are enthusiastic people, enjoying the role they play in helping others achieve their goals.
There are many qualities of a great mentor. Please see a few important qualities below!
About the Program
Program Goals
Program Structure
Mentor & Mentee Expectations
Pairing and Boundaries
Program Goals
The MWI Mentoring Program's goal is to provide an opportunity for early/mid-career students to partner with a mid-career/senior female professional in the Puget Sound community to share experience, wisdom and enhance their future careers. Milgard graduate students in the following programs are eligible to participate as a mentee:
- MBA (Masters of Business Administration)
- MCL (Master of Cybersecurity and Leadership)
- MSAcc (Master of Science in Accounting)
- MSBA (Masters of Science in Business Analytics)
- Milgard Undergraduates (Juniors & Seniors)
The majority of the students in the program are mid-career professionals with at least 6-8 years of work experience, and most are working while they complete their graduate degree. During the 2024-25 Academic Year, the MWI Mentoring Program will be piloting the program for Milgard undergraduate students.
Program Structure
The MWI Mentoring program provides intentional pairing of mentors and mentees based on skills, background, and experiences. The program also provides:
Quarterly Structured Sessions
Quarterly structured sessions on select topics with other mentors and mentees in a group setting, allowing both mentors and mentees to expand their networks and their knowledge.
Monthly 1:1 Mentoring Sessions
During monthly 1:1 mentoring sessions, participants explore issues pertinent to women in the workplace. The monthly 1:1 meetings are scheduled by the mentor and mentee.
Women who serve as executives and leaders (retired or currently working) have so much wisdom to share with the next generation of professional women. For mentors, this is also a great opportunity to learn about the next generation of leaders and professionals.
Mutual Expectations
Mentors and mentees are expected to make an academic year commitment to the program. All activities will occur in the Fall, Winter and Spring quarters. The structured time commitment includes an Orientation Session in the Fall, and a closing Session in the Spring. There will also be group sessions in each of the Fall, Winter and Spring quarters. The group sessions will involve more structured discussions of curriculum readings and will last approximately 1.5 hours. Both mentors and mentees are expected to be familiar with the assigned readings.
Mentors and mentees are expected to meet 1:1 at least once per month during the school year in whatever manner and time that is mutually agreeable. At the end of the year, both mentors and mentees will be asked to respond to a survey about their experience to help the program continuously improve.
Note: all discussions in group or individual sessions are confidential.
Mentor Specific Expectations
Each mentor must provide a bio or CV to assist with pairing to a mentee. Bios should be no more than 200 words and cover career highlights. A photograph would be appreciated as well. Mentors may renew their commitment to the Mentorship program after the first year.
Mentee Specific Expectations
Mentees must apply to join the program. This application allows students to outline their interests and goals for their career and indicate what they expect to get out of the Mentorship Program. Mentees should come to their mentor sessions with thoughts about issues and topics to discuss.
Pairing and Boundaries
Pairing
The MWI Mentoring Program will pair mentors and mentees based on stated common backgrounds or interests. Unless there is a significant personality clash, we will ask pairs to remain together for the year.
What Mentoring Program Is Not?
This program is not about finding jobs for the participating students, tutoring students, reviewing resumes and providing job references, nor becoming the student’s best buddy. Those choices or decisions would be at the discretion of the mentor. But students should not have those types of expectations.
Hear from our Mentors and Mentees
Confidence Through Empowerment
The program boosted my confidence and made me realize my potential. I learned to own up my background as my Unique Selling Point (USP) rather than feel overwhelmed by the talent all around.
-2021-2022 Mentee
Supportive Career Mentor
Having a mentor that I could talk to about work, family, career, and my future has been great. I loved that my mentor was so supportive and has even been helping me connect with people for job opportunities.
-2021-2022 Mentee
Enriching Mentorship Experience
It was a great experience and privilege to be a part of this fantastic program. As a mentor, found it was so enjoyable, educational, and inspiring. My mentee is a wonderful, intelligent great new friend. [The staff provided] fantastic articles and resources, and did a great job with identifying great topics.
-2020-2021 Mentor
Mentor Profile
You have the sincere desire to help and are passionate to help others. The reward comes in seeing the people you have helped grow and change.
You will help those in need to develop strategies that fit the person’s need, talent, skills and desire, and push the person towards growth.
You are a life-long learner and want to pass that desire on to everyone you come in contact with. It is ok to not know everything, no one does. You have the willingness to search and seek out answers. You want to learn from your mentee in this mutual learning journey.
You are capable of identifying comfort zones and encourage the mentee to step out of his/her comfort zone to have new experiences and reflect on learning.
You are skilled at creating long-term relationships, having ongoing dialogues to identify opportunities for improvement for your mentee, and proposing actions to be more successful.
You are tactful in your conversation and emotionally intelligent. You are not judgmental of others, you feel empathy to those they are dealing with emotions or challenges during the different phases of their lives.
Do these qualities describe you? Are you excited to grow and develop while helping a student do the same? If so, please contact us at clsr@uw.edu to start the conversation. We’d love to talk to you.
