Happy National Mentoring Month!
Patricia Marsteller, Emory University
Since Odysseus left Mentor in charge of his family, estates, and his son, the art and science of mentoring has been critical to guiding career and educational development. Like Mentor, I aim to be a wise and trusted counselor, guide, guardian, and teacher or as the title of a widely read book indicates, an Adviser, Teacher, Role Model, Friend (National Academies of Sciences, 1997). I have learned that mentoring is an alliance between people and that both mentors and mentees benefit from agreements about how the relationship will evolve and how to include social support, career development, and growth. With faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates, mentoring often involves getting to know the whole person, their aims and aspirations, and their qualms about the future. Connecting students to the right resources or empowering them to bring up difficult questions with their faculty or research mentors requires that you be open, listen carefully, and know them as persons.

Benefit–Cost Analysis of Undergraduate Education Programs: An Example Analysis of the Freshman Research Initiative
Rebecca L. Walcott; Phaedra S. Corso; Stacia E. Rodenbusch; and Erin L. Dolan
The authors comprehensively describe how to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of an undergraduate education program, using a detailed real-life example to illustrate the process. Principal conclusion: the university's investment in Freshman Research Initiative generates a positive return for students in the form of increased future earning potential (p. 1).

The Science Education Initiative Handbook
Stephanie Chasteen and Warren Code
× The Science Education Initiative Handbook This book offers advice on implementing a department-level changes to curricula and instructional practices facilitated by Discipline-Based Educational Specialists ...

How can we help change leaders understand how measurement and data can be used?
David Bressoud, Macalester College
ASCN Working Group 4: Demonstrating Impact is trying something new. This group's mission is to identify, explain, and disseminate information on metrics that hold the potential to document, foster, accelerate, and communicate systemic change. Good questions are a great way to share and expand knowledge. Each month a question of interest and value to the higher education community will be sent to the working group members. Responses will be collated and posted on the ASCN blog. We hope that this will lead to beneficial collaborations not just among the members of the working group, but also across the network, and will reach the larger higher education community interested in systemic change. The assumption behind this group is that measurement and data are effective mechanisms for facilitating change. The question for this month has two parts. How can we help change leaders understand how measurement and data can be used? Can you give an example from your own experience where this has happened? Below are the first three responses received. Please use comment section to respond to the question and to engage in a discussion about the current responses. If there is a link or citation that you think would be of value to other readers, please include this as well. In addition, if there are any questions you would like Demonstrating Impact Working Group to address, please email those to Inese, the ASCN Project Manager.

Do I want to be recognized? Reflections on my experience with (Dis)Ability and working in Higher Education
Paul Artale, Henry Ford Community College
My name is Paul. I was born missing fingers and have funny arms. I am ok with it. There really isn't much that I can't do and I have learned to adapt. People who looked at me probably thought I could never play college football but yeah...I did that. I even coached it for a while. I loved my time working in athletics and although I looked different, I never felt out of place or discriminated against. I was just Paul Artale, football guy, and keeping teams from scoring on us was the most important thing in the world. I bring up football because being an athlete (and the lessons learned from it) are still very prominent pieces of my identity. Disability is a complex and nuanced identity. Disability is not a primary, or even secondary identity for many people with a disability. My athletic identity, ethnicity, and nationality (Canadian) are far more prevalent in my life. On a good day, it is something I don't think about much about. On a rare bad day it is something that I repress. Disability is often left out of discussions about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) because individuals with disabilities frequently do not prioritize their disability identity, or leave it completely out of conversations because it is a secondary or tertiary identity. Another reason is that disability is often perceived as a medical condition; a person has a condition, they adapt, they persist, and they almost forget they had a disability in the first place.

CIRTL: Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning
CIRTL: Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning This website explains the purpose, membership, activities, and publications associated with the Center for the Integration of Research, ...

STEM Evaluation Repository of AEA
STEM Evaluation Repository of AEA Resource list of STEM Evaluation metrics from the American Evaluation Association STEM topical group. Not well populated at this time but could be a growing resource. Add a ...

New Faculty Workshop in Physics
New Faculty Workshop in Physics Led by disciplinary societies, this 20+ year professional development program has been shown to have a substantial impact on faculty awareness of, and initial use of, active ...

American Evaluation Association
American Evaluation Association Network and professional society for evaluators, including ability to find evaluators, and many resources for performing evaluation and communicating results to stakeholders. ...

Engaging the "race question": Accountability and equity in higher education
Engaging the "race question": Accountability and equity in higher education Drawing on CUE's Equity Scorecard, demonstrate what educators need to know and do to take an active role in racial equity ...