Developing a Common Mentoring Protocol for ERC Summer Programs Using “As-is, Should-be and To-be” Process

The Engineering Research Centers (ERCs), funded by the National Science Foundation, run various summer programs to promote engineering education and engineering careers within the community. To help obtain a successful program experience, ERCs assign each participant a mentor or mentors from center affiliated faculty members, postdoctoral scholars and graduate students. Mentors have expressed concerns with lacking executable guidelines and followable instructions in mentoring the participants. Existing literature has not fully explored the mentoring protocols for engineering summer research programs. This study proposes a series of systematically integrated research to develop a common instructional mentoring protocol for future ERC summer programs by applying “As-is, Should-be and To-be” process.