Action Kit

Recommendations Highlights

For Students

  • Break the ice – speak early in the semester
  • If you do not feel comfortable participating in all of your classes, target a few courses and invest extra time preparing to participate
  • Be aware of how you contribute to classroom dynamics
  • You are entitled to faculty time – reach out early and often
  • Start writing with faculty your 1L year

For Faculty

  • After asking a question, wait 5 seconds before calling on students to see if new hands go up
  • Practice some form of “warm” calling, like a panel system
  • Before class, provide students with questions you plan to discuss
  • Implement mandatory office hours
  • Provide students with feedback on written work
  • Advertise research assistant and teaching assistant positions and hire students through formal channels

For the Administration

  • Reward and recognize teaching excellence
  • Provide teacher training and pedagogical workshops
  • Credit faculty for time spent mentoring and collaborating with students
  • Provide faculty with resources like classroom monitoring and videotaping of class sessions
  • Make diversity a priority in faculty hiring

Implementation Materials

Click here to read the handbill distributed to faculty at the start of each semester.

Click here to check out the handbill distributed to new students each fall.

Click here to read the Best Practices Guide to Faculty-Student Mentorship and here for the full YLW+ Mentorship Report.