For many students, particularly those who are members of the CU Denver and SEHD communities, academic success is deeply shaped by the informal mentoring they receive. A quick check-in after class, a validating comment on a student’s idea, or a shared story about your own academic journey can be the difference between feeling invisible and feeling seen.
While we are in the early weeks of the semester, our inclusive excellence spotlight is on the often-unrecognized power of informal mentoring. These moments don’t require a formal program or extra time—they require presence, empathy, and intentionality.
Students determine whom they consider informal mentors (Gowdy & Hogan, 2021), generally described as a non-parental caring adult who inspires them, supports them and helps them feel cared about. To be sure, these practices are very well aligned to our inclusive excellence goals and student support, retention, and success ambitions. The types of faculty and staff behaviors that reflect informal mentoring include:
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Noticing when a student seems disengaged and asking how they’re doing.
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Encouraging a student to apply for a research opportunity they hadn’t considered.
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Sharing your own experiences navigating academia as a first-gen, Person of Color, LGBTQ+, differently-abled scholar.
Let’s continue to build a culture where every student feels supported—not just in the classroom, in an office, or online, but in the quiet moments in between. In fact, the purpose of this series of instructional excellence articles is to support inclusive practices and professional learning in SEHD that support student success. The inaugural article in August was entitled Creating Belonging from Day One: Small Shifts, Big Impact. If there are topics of instructional excellence or inclusive pedagogy that you’d like to read about in a future issue of Impact!, you can indicate those topics using this anonymous link.
Below is a reading list of academic articles (and 1 book) that explore inclusive mentoring practices in higher education, focusing on both faculty classroom practices and staff advising roles. These sources emphasize mentoring as a tool for equity, belonging, and student success.
Faculty Practices in Classrooms
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Templeton, N. R., Jeong, S., & Pugliese, E. (2021). Mentoring for continuous improvement in teaching and learning. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 29(1), 1-5.This special issue explores mentoring as a transformative experience for graduate students and novice teachers. It highlights mentoring as a people-centered practice that fosters reflective dialogue, teacher leadership, and inclusive supervisory relationships.
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De Lange, T., & Wittek, L. (Eds.). (2023). Faculty peer group mentoring in higher education: Developing collegiality through organised supportive collaboration (Vol. 61). Springer Nature.This book presents empirical research on peer group mentoring among faculty. It discusses how structured mentoring fosters trust, collegiality, and inclusive teaching and supervision practices across institutional boundaries.
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Seery, C., Andres, A., Moore-Cherry, N., & O’Sullivan, S. (2021). Students as partners in peer mentoring: Expectations, experiences and emotions. Innovative Higher Education, 46(6), 663-681.This article examines peer mentoring in a large social science program, emphasizing emotional labor, partnership culture, and the democratization of mentoring relationships between students, faculty, and staff.
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Gowdy, G., & Hogan, S. (2021). Informal mentoring among foster youth entering higher education. Children and Youth Services Review, 120, 105716.Informal mentoring among foster youth entering higher education.This article discusses the types of informal mentoring that are supportive of students from foster care, highlighting the differences between core support and capital support, both of which lead to positive outcomes for students (.
Student-facing Staff Practices
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Omland, M., Hontvedt, M., Siddiq, F., Amundrud, A., Hermansen, H., Mathisen, M. A., Rudningen, G, & Reiersen, F. (2025). Co-creation in higher education: a conceptual systematic review. Higher Education, 1-31.This review analyzes 222 studies on co-creation, where students and staff collaborate in curriculum and mentoring design. It identifies key concepts—dialogue, positioning, voice, and agency—as central to inclusive mentoring and advising practices.
- Nabi, G., Walmsley, A., Mir, M., & Osman, S. (2025). The impact of mentoring in higher education on student career development: a systematic review and research agenda. Studies in Higher Education, 50(4), 739-755.
This review synthesizes 73 studies on mentoring’s role in student career development. It highlights the importance of culturally responsive mentoring, especially for underrepresented groups, and calls for more nuanced impact indicators like career inspiration and identity formation.