2014 OSCAR Mentoring Excellence Award Duhita Mahatmya, PhD.
NARRATIVE
Mentoring Undergraduate Scholarship
Duhita Mahatmya
Assistant Professor, Integrative & Childhood Studies
New Century College
George Mason University
My current research has identified remaining gaps in the knowledge and literature on well-being; specifically, academic and psychosocial outcomes are often studied within certain age groups and contexts (e.g., early childhood, K-12, or college), with limited work attending to the continuity of this development. Additionally, it is from this research on well-being and life transitions that I have learned about and applied practices that can help students and young adults thrive. Coincidentally, I collaborate with and teach many individuals who are part of this population. Therefore, as a way to support their development and to deepen my own scholarship, I have and will continue to mentor undergraduate students. In this way, the very contexts and populations I live in and study have contributed to the evolution of myself as a mentor, scholar, and educator.
Since arriving at George Mason University in the fall of 2011, I have been fortunate to work with excellent students as part of independent studies, formal undergraduate research assistantships, and the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. Taken as a whole, the students and I have explored the intersection of child and adolescent well-being with family systems, schools, and neighborhoods. I am excited about the potential insights our research will contribute to my scholarship and the discipline, but most importantly, I value the opportunity to observe students grow in their own learning and research mindedness. It has been through these more intimate student interactions that my students and I engage in reflective practice; that is, I encourage them to situate the research in their larger personal and professional goals to remember the “ so what?” of the detailed daily work they complete. For many of the students, they come to realize that research has allowed them to not only apply what they have learned, but also to build confidence in the knowledge and skills they have learned through curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular experiences. Furthermore, because I use an inquiry-based approach to social science research, the students often find the initial research tasks vague and frustrating, but eventually learn how to be resourceful and to activate their prior knowledge and experiences to find out what research feels and looks like to each of them.
Indeed, the mission of my academic unit, New Century College (NCC) is to encourage students to “engage in active learning, independent inquiry, and research” and I believe that experiential learning (to include research experiences) helps to celebrate students’ learning and un-situate classroom-based knowledge. Beyond the NCC faculty and learning communities (which is relevant as I have worked with students inside and outside of my academic unit), having students formally present their scholarship to a wider audience reinforces support for student inquiry as well. Through these varied endeavors, my aim is to show students that research really is just another way to refine and practice excellent habits of learning. Finally, as an invited participant in Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning Seminar on Mentoring Undergraduate
Research, I am eager to deepen my own understanding of the connections between mentoring, research, and student learning outcomes to further NCC and Mason’s commitment to undergraduate scholarship.