Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how postsecondary mentoring programs address mentee dispositions prior to the mentee entering the reciprocal relationship, particularly which mentee dispositions are valued across mentoring program types, including peer, community-to-student, faculty-to-student and faculty-to-faculty programs. Design/methodology/approach This study employed quantitative content analysis to examine 280 institutional US postsecondary mentoring websites across four different institution types (public, four-year; private, four-year, non-profit; private, four-year, for-profit; public, two-year) and four different mentoring program types (peer or student-to-student, community-to-student, faculty-to-student and faculty-to-faculty programs). Grounded coding strategies were employed to generate these four mentoring program types, supported by extant research (Crisp et al., 2017). Findings Of 280 mentoring programs, 18.6 percent articulated mentee dispositions prior to entering the reciprocal relationship. When mentoring programs did address mentees, most programs articulated mentor duties aligned with mentee expectations (47.5 percent of programs) and program outcomes for mentees (65.7 percent of programs) rather than what the mentee can and should bring into a reciprocal relationship. Research limitations/implications This study is delimited by its sample size and its focus on institutional website content. Future studies should explore how mentoring programs recruit and retain mentees, as well as how website communications address the predispositions and fit of mentees within different types of mentoring programs. Practical implications This study provided evidence that many postsecondary mentoring programs in the USA may not be articulating programmatic expectations of mentees prior to the mentoring relationship. By failing to address mentee predispositions, mentoring programs may not be accurately assessing their mentor’s compatibility with their mentees, potentially leading to unproductive mentoring relationships. Originality/value This study affirms extant research (Black and Taylor, 2017) while connecting mentor- and coaching-focused literature to the discussion of a mentee dispositions scale or measurement akin to Crisp’s (2009) College Student Mentoring Scale and Searby’s (2014) mentoring mindset framework. This study also forwards an exploratory model of mentoring program inputs and outputs, envisioning both mentor and mentee characteristics as fundamental inputs for a mentoring program rather than traditional models that view mentors as inputs and mentee achievements as outputs (Crisp, 2009; Searby, 2014).

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Due to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Spring of 2020, college students’, including first-generation students, were forced to transition to remote learning. First-gen students traditionally face many challenges in their academic and personal lives. The purpose of this evaluation research project is to understand the impact this major shift has had on first- generation college students’ learning and challenges they faced in this process. Initially, a first- gen committee decided to conduct an assessment to evaluate how our undergraduate first-gen students were experiencing an unanticipated and rapid move to remote learning including their college experiences. 1,318 students participated in the survey measuring students’ attitudes, perceptions, experiences, and their demographic background information and included feedback from one open-ended qualitative question. The results of the survey showed significant findings pertaining to first-gen students’ in three areas: 1) Academic Learning Environment; 2) Financial Challenges; and 3) Psychological Well-Being. In response to the assessment, the First-Gen Proud committee suggested recommendations to faculty and staff to assist in supporting first- gen students at Texas State University.

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