2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Mentoring is widely recognized as a means of cultivating leadership skills for current and future leaders (Dziczkowski, 2013). Entering the fourth year of a National Science Foundation IUSE grant focused on engineering education and enrichment, the integration of industry-led mentoring has been identified as an important asset for enriching career development for undergraduate engineering students. However, while the benefits of the mentoring process are well documented in literature, a gap exists regarding the potential to build leadership capacity among rising engineering professionals who serve in the role of mentor. Preliminary feedback from industry mentors involved in the program suggests an interest in the creation of leadership pathways for rising engineering professionals serving as mentors to undergraduate engineering students. That feedback has provided the impetus for creating a professional development micro-credential comprised of a sequence of online “digital badges”, which guide rising engineering professionals in utilizing mentoring as a leadership development tool that helps navigate career advancement in their respective engineering fields. Integrated within the digital badges are guiding principles designed to positively influence the development of a self-directed learning mindset, building leadership capacity among rising engineering professionals as future leaders.

The literature conveys that mentors often cite the ability to increase their professional skills as personal benefits gained through the mentoring process, stating that serving as mentors caused them to reflect on and sharpen their own skills, including coaching, communicating, and reflecting (Hopkins-Thompson, 2000). In this paper, we report on our efforts to scale a novel leadership development model for rising engineering professionals through engagement as mentors. We further share progress to date on the development of a series of professional development digital “badges” that can be stacked toward a leadership micro-credential, and offer a reflective insight from current industry mentors on how engagement in the program has provoked aspirations for advanced leadership roles in the engineering profession.

As a work in progress, some of the challenges and breakthroughs achieved in developing this curriculum are shared. Further, preliminary strategies for overcoming known challenges for an effective mentor-mentee relationship are shared (e.g., time management, creating positive professional relationships with mentees, cultural and demographic nuances, organizational commitment) as insight into future direction of the program.