The Pitt STRIVE Program: Adopting Evidence-Based Principles "The Meyerhoff and PROMISE Way”

Abstract

County. Her research involves the development and application of engineering concepts and active learning techniques in clinical and institutional learning environments to help improve the literacy of fundamental, yet critical aspects of health.

Framing Cultural Bridges for Relational Mentorship

“…With respect to role of mentorship as a subject of this paper, the barriers and inequalities that can be addressed in a functional mentorship process, include: 1) Systemic perception of inadequacies of URM, where measures such as low GRE scores, low self-confidence, and perceived less rigorous preparation prior to graduate school are used by departments to explain differential experiences and outcomes among students [3]- [5] and create unequal financial support opportunities for URM students, even with comparable GPAs; 2) Unique lived experiences of URM [6], [7]; 3) Struggles with sense of belonging [8], which make them more likely to face the challenge of adaptation to a culture outside their lived experiences and the lack of diverse faculty that share their background and values exacerbates the situation. We have seen in the PITT STRIVE Program (PSP) that where there was a low critical mass of URMs, as in most STEM departments, a good mentorship, welcoming and nurturing educational community were supportive of URM students' cultural identities and helped them cope with feelings of isolation [5], [9]; 4) Exclusionary practices perpetuated by power differentials between people in the system sets the "others", usually URMs, apart from everyone, sending a micro-aggressive message that the "others" are different and do not belong in the same ways as "us", stigmatizing those deemed to be "other" [10], with the perception of "other" often a result of race-based implicit bias that leads to unjust practices that single-out, overlook, discount, exclude, or ignore URMs [11], [12], and thus URM students enter into a graduate program or a mentorship relationship with less trust in systems or mentors; 5) Climate of micro-inequalities often collectively normalized in the system's support for victims that can impair performance, diminish self-esteem, impede self-confidence, and in some cases, lead the victim "voluntarily" to leave the environment [2], [13]; 6) Lack of faculty diversity leads URM students struggle with a lack of minority faculty role models who "look like them [2]"; 7) Race-based discrimination and implicit biases [13]- [17]; and 8) Unwelcoming and unsupportive campus environment that is noted to make the completion of doctoral degrees more difficult for URM in STEM [8]. The lack of system level supports to dismantle these barriers exacerbates such an already systemically exclusive environment.…”