Mentoring Program Fosters Connections

When Courtney Arthur joined EDC as a math curriculum developer in 2011, she was starstruck by some of her new colleagues. Arthur had previously been a mathematics teacher in the Chicago Public Schools; now, she was sitting next to some of the very same people who wrote the textbooks that she had used in her classroom.

However, it didn’t take long for Arthur to regard these renowned mathematics educators as peers and collaborators. But more recently, as she thought about her future at EDC, she began to recognize a ceiling. Most of the people receiving National Science Foundation funding to build mathematics curricula had a PhD. Arthur didn’t.

“I wanted to know if there were other routes to development, to proposals, to obtaining your own funding sources, without that PhD?” Arthur asked.

However, the answer to that question wasn’t included in any manual or directive from the Human Resources Department. So Arthur turned to a pilot mentoring program at EDC—a three-month program in which staff are paired with EDC colleagues who have demonstrated leadership or expertise in specific areas of interest.

Arthur was paired with Sarita Pillai, the director of STEM & Workforce Success and an EDC vice president. Like Arthur, Pillai does not have a PhD. But since joining EDC in 2001, she has led some of the organization’s signature STEM initiatives, including the STEM Learning and Research Center and EDC’s partnership with Digital Promise on the Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences. During regular mentoring sessions, Pillai shared her experiences and lessons learned from advancing in the organization and gave Arthur practical advice for how she could keep pressing forward.

For Arthur, the conversations were a breath of fresh air.

“In order to navigate a career at EDC you have to be able to have these conversations,” Arthur says. “This mentorship really allowed me that insight.”

This outcome is precisely what Camille Lemieux, an education researcher and co-director of the mentoring program, wants to see. Lemieux says that the goal of the program is to help staff, especially staff who are underrepresented in certain fields and leadership roles, develop and recognize their unique potential in the organization.

“EDC staff are committed to becoming more inclusive and equitable,” Lemieux says. “The mentoring program is a vehicle for colleagues to talk about how they see themselves in EDC’s landscape, how they can advocate for their beliefs, and how they can implement more equitable practices.”

Ten mentoring pairs, including Arthur and Pillai, participated in the pilot program this past fall. In 2021, Lemieux expects that number to rise to 40.

Lemieux sees the program as being more than just about helping people climb the organizational ladder. It’s also about addressing systemic inequities in the way that EDC conducts its work and supporting a cadre of emerging leaders who can help improve that work. As a result, she wants the program to be inclusive, so she is actively reaching out—connecting to staff who are Arab, Asian, Black, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Indigenous, and First Nation; to those with disabilities; to staff in the LGBTQ+ community; and to veterans—to ensure they all feel encouraged to participate.

“I believe in mentoring for equity, not just for individual growth,” Lemieux says. “While a mentoring program can’t eliminate systemic inequities, it can give people the tools and connections they need to self-advocate and thrive.”

In the following videos, participants in the EDC mentoring program share what they learned about themselves, about their work, and about each other.