About PMM

This is a voluntary peer-mentorship program for Stanford University Music Department graduate students.

If you are on Slack and you would like to join the group conversations, you can join the Peer Mentoring in Music group, then the channels you are interested in. For your questions, you can email to Doga Cavdir, Sean O’Dalaigh, and Blair Kaneshiro directly.

For 2022-2023 Academic Year, use the following links for mentee and mentor sign up before October 10, 2022.

Mentee sign up: https://stanforduniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cIW9xIpVFpi0r4i
Mentor sign up: https://stanforduniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_agY9e4IaeUbgXDE

Overview

Mentorship and social interactions among students are critical to a successful graduate-school experience. While Stanford has a variety of counseling and mentoring opportunities, the Music Department has no such program for our graduate students. This need for a structured framework to support mentorship and social connections within the department is more important than ever during COVID-19 shutdowns, while our community can connect only virtually. The current lack of such a mentoring and support system risks perpetuating negative cycles of missed opportunities at Stanford, ineffective advisor-advisee relationships, and social isolation. On the other hand, an effective support structure would have the potential to improve educational, research, community, and social outcomes for students.

To meet this unmet need, we organize the Peer Mentoring in Music (PMM) program, an online initiative for masters and early-stage Ph.D. students, with particular outreach to students from underrepresented groups. Each mentee will be paired with a more senior graduate student in the department who will serve as their peer mentor, and participate in programming geared toward mentees and mentors as a group. Emphasizing inclusivity and nonjudgmental support in teaching practices, this peer network will share effective pedagogical strategies, provide professional development support, and foster role models for future educators.

In its initial offering the PMM program spanned the four quarters of the 2020-2021 academic year, with possible continuation in subsequent years. We envision three types of monthly activities for participants. First, mentees will meet one-on-one with their mentors to discuss topics of their choosing. The second monthly activity involves academic-themed programming in group seminar or panel settings, covering such topics as teaching, research, scholarship, and future career paths in academia, industry, and the arts. These events will be geared toward mentees, though mentors will also be invited to attend. Through monthly meetings and panels with alumni from underrepresented groups, we will discuss career development, challenges, and coping mechanisms. The third monthly event will be held as unstructured time for the mentees and interested mentors to socialize and discuss mentorship topics in a less formal environment. Mentors will convene at the start of the academic year to learn about the available university and department resources, program guidelines, and expectations. In all, we estimate a 3-hour monthly commitment for mentees and a 1-hour monthly commitment for mentors.

Amidst continued COVID shutdowns, this program will offer an acclimation opportunity to incoming students in the absence of a physical classroom and lab experience. Future iterations of the project will extend to alumni who can serve as volunteer mentors and could potentially also serve undergraduate mentees. This year, the program will be organized by Doga Cavdir (PhD Candidate, CCRMA) and Sean O’Dalaigh (DMA student, CCRMA & Music Department) with advisory support from Blair Kaneshiro (Adjunct Professor, CCRMA).

Structure

Monthly Meetings

In order to encourage social connections while aiming toward a manageable time commitment for participants, the program will be focused primarily on scheduled interactions among the mentees, or between mentor-mentee pairs. We anticipate three 1-hour meetings per month:

  • Monthly mentor-mentee meeting (3 meetings per quarter - 3rd meeting is optional in the fall).
  • Topic-themed monthly group meeting: Focus will be on different academic, pedagogical, and professional development content. In these meetings, we will host workshops and panels, e.g., inviting current senior graduate students and alumni.
  • Monthly social group meeting: These meetings will be less structured, but rather allow for informal social interactions such as coffee or lunch gatherings.

We are planning for a remote format for all meetings, but we will seek in-person meeting oppurtunities if university regulations allow.

Pairing Mentors and Mentees

We will base our mentor-mentee pairing procedure after those used in established mentoring initiatives in which the PMM organizers have participated: Stanford’s First-Gen/Low-Income (FLI) Mentoring Program and the Women in Music Information Retrieval (WiMIR) Mentoring Program:

  • Prospective mentors and mentees will fill out an online application form to provide basic information about themselves, indicate what types of mentoring topics they would like to discuss (as mentee) or can advise on (as mentor), and any other information that is pertinent to their mentor preferences (e.g., international student, LGBTQIA friendly, free-form responses).
  • We will hold (1) a welcome meeting / mixer for participants to meet, talk informally, and identify prospective matches, and (2) the first structured meeting of the quarter while mentor/mentee signups are open in September. Mentees can communicate with mentors, report their preferences in the signup form, and apply to the program throughout the month (signups will close on September 30, 2020).
  • The organizers will propose mentor-mentee pairs based on the responses to the above signup forms. Matches will be announced by October 5, 2020. Mentors and mentees can also inform the organizers that they have formed their own pair. In this case, we will prioritize their requests but we cannot make any promises.
  • Our default process for matching will be to change the mentor-mentee pairings every quarter. However, any pair can decide to stay paired from quarter to quarter.