Do you use the term "Senior Mentor" on your team?

[KathieK]

This season I discovered some mentors were wearing shirts embroidered with the words "FIRST Senior Mentor" - each time I saw it I struggled to figure out who the person was since I didn't recognize them as one of the FSMs I knew. I don't know if it's catching on as a term in FIRST or if I'm just noticing it more (like the phenomenon of noticing all the cars on the road which look like the one you just bought)...

I'm curious if the term is used as an indicator of a person who has been with the team for a long time, or is possibly the team leader. Perhaps teams don't realize that there is a group of people who work for FIRST as "FIRST Senior Mentors" and by using the term it could cause some confusion? http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...t.aspx?id=3310

[Lisa Perez]

Haha - I actually just made a post with "senior mentor" on it. We use the term to designate which of the mentors are the leaders of the mentor base. However, we do make sure to say that those people are "Team 830 Senior Mentors" so that there is no confusion

[smurfgirl]

"FIRST Senior Mentor" means the same thing to me as it does to you. Students from my team tend to say something along the lines of "Adult Coach", "Head Mentor", or "Lead Mentor" when referring to the adult team leader. I can see how the term "Senior Mentor" could get confused and used by teams to mean other things though.

[RoboMom]

For 5 years I wore shirts with "FIRST Senior Mentor" embroidered on them and signed my emails with the title.

My "customers" (the mentors, students, and event volunteers especially in Maryland) usually had a good idea of what the role meant when I was wearing the shirt. They tended to get a lot of communication from me.

A little historical perspective. The official title "FIRST Senior Mentor" was established as part of a new generation grant funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service in 2004. I believe the title was dictated by the target recruitment audience of the original project. There was a generous mix of younger and more "senior" in the original class. I always found it an interesting play on words. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/16218 to see a photo of the original group.

Over the years, I also encountered quite a few mentors who signed their correspondence as "Senior Mentor" or wore shirts with the title, as reflected by their role on the team, from all the FIRST programs. In conversation, I would say "make sure you read the job description on the FIRST website in case you are interested in the future with being a Senior Mentor for all the teams, not just your team."

[rsisk]

We use the term "Senior Mentor" for the principle mentors on our team and to distinguish them from the student or college mentors.

I didn't realize there was a program for FIRST Senior Mentors http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...0&terms=senior. I have met Fredi, Nancy, and David personally, and hopefully will meet the rest some day.

[BEEKMAN]

We don't use Senior Mentor, but we do use Junior Mentors to represent Mentors that have not graduated college (or work in a professional job) yet. Its a way to distinguish from a well establish Adult Mentor, and a Student/College/Growing Mentor

[Alan Anderson]

We don't assign titles that distinguish between levels of mentorship. We do have specific "Lead" positions (such as "Lead Teacher" and "Lead Electrical Mentor") and heads of various committees, and we have a defined Steering Committee (which is responsible for things that on some teams is done by a single Team Leader), but basically a Mentor is a Mentor.

We recently had some discussion among the adult leadership about whether team members who had just graduated from High School should be accepted as mentors (the consensus was that we want them to take a year "off" to give a definite break between student and mentor roles). The term "Junior Mentor" was used casually as a shorthand reference, but nobody intended for it to become a real title.

The closest thing to "Senior Mentor" we have is "Team Grandma".

[IKE]

Kathie,

You may be touching on a slightly larger issue. I have been involved with FIRST since 2002, and with Team 33 since 2005, and this is the first year I knew of something called "Senior Mentors". We are an established team so thus less likely to be looking for help, but I was suprised the first time someone corrected me for using the term incorrectly. Thanks for putting up the link, and thank you for the support to the FIRST Community.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by IKE

Kathie,

You may be touching on a slightly larger issue. I have been involved with FIRST since 2002, and with Team 33 since 2005, and this is the first year I knew of something called "Senior Mentors". We are an established team so thus less likely to be looking for help, but I was suprised the first time someone corrected me for using the term incorrectly. Thanks for putting up the link, and thank you for the support to the FIRST Community.

There you go.

It is getting better. I think FIRST is making a deeper effort. (It is also making a deeper superficial effort (whatever that means) to showcase women in FRC. If you remember at Kick-Off, we saw such notable FIRSTers as Kathie, Jenny, and Tonya Scott introducing folks from FIRST. Of course, they all wear multiple hats and being a FSM or former FSM who still carries the knowledge, is just one of them for Kathie and Jenny. Sorry for the aside.)

They're getting there. We have some awesome FIRST Senior Mentors now and we've had some awesome Senior Mentors in the past. Ask Jenny about them. Truth is - we need more Senior Mentors, not less. Texas could easily use 3. Mike Henry is doing a great job here in the 'I'm not sure what his boundaries are' part of Texas. Of course there is probably no money for needs like FIRST Senior Mentors but that doesn't mean they are not valuable and needed. The need is only going to deepen as FRC continues to expand.

To comment on the confusion - being a former FIRST Senior Mentor and never quite conveying that well to our team, I caused a lot of confusion for the students. The up side of that is that new students will come up and look at me at close range (like I'm a bug) and say, " just EXACTly what do you do, Jane?" And then we know what happens... my elevator speech. I have to work on that.

Jane

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by IKE

I have been involved with FIRST since 2002, and with Team 33 since 2005, and this is the first year I knew of something called "Senior Mentors".

Because we don't have any in Michigan. However we have a whole lot of people who served in Senior Mentor -like functions; many of them ended up starting FIRST in Michigan.

The best thing that a Senior Mentor can be, in my opinion, is the go-to person for help. Can't figure out programming? Go to the Senior Mentor and she will direct you to another mentor for help. Need assistance with Chairmans? Again, call your Senior Mentor. Need help with fundraising? (You get the idea.)

As opposed to the informal structure we had here in MI, and you had to know to go to Jim or Walt or Gail - or find some other equally capable mentor to assist you. How can you find the great resources that are out there, if you don't know the great people?

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by IKE

Kathie,

You may be touching on a slightly larger issue. I have been involved with FIRST since 2002, and with Team 33 since 2005, and this is the first year I knew of something called "Senior Mentors". We are an established team so thus less likely to be looking for help, but I was suprised the first time someone corrected me for using the term incorrectly. Thanks for putting up the link, and thank you for the support to the FIRST Community.

Ike, were you aware of the Senior Mentor Teleconferences over the past 3 years? http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr....aspx?id=10124

(NOTE: there was also a very good one on Awards last season but it appears it has been removed from this listing.)

So now that I'm tripping down memory lane, the Senior Mentor class of 2007: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/28337 (and I'm having fun reading the comments with these photos!)

[Chris is me]

"Lead Mentor" is what I use, but on Shaker there's basically "the teachers" and "the fake mentor". 3 seconds to guess what I am

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

For 5 years I wore shirts with "FIRST Senior Mentor" embroidered on them and signed my emails with the title....

I still have my targets....errrrrrr "shirts" hanging in my closet. Good times ... mostly .... well, except for the working with that Sperber guy and his bottle of water . I noticed from Kathie's post that Steve Cremer is still at it. I believe he was part of the original 2004 crew.

Oops yeah.... getting to the point of the thread ... yes, I see how some of the verbiage causes confusion from team to team and region to region

[KathieK]

I'm encouraging FIRST to advertise our program and services more this year. As Jenny said, watch for announcements regarding our FSM-hosted teleconferences for mentors from all programs. We do need more FSMs and an attempt to expand the program for 2010-2011 unfortunately did not get funded (a grant was applied for). But the program will remain "as-is" for the coming year. We're a small goup but we have a vast wealth of knowledge to share!
We didn't get a group photo in Atlanta this year; many of us were there working in various capacities including staffing the information booth and the mentor breakfast.
And Rich, yes, I believe Steve is from the original class.

[Richard Wallace]

So if two FIRST team members each take the same Senior Mentor by the hand and begin pulling in different directions, causing her to rotate, I guess that would constitute at Senior Mentor Moment?