Mentor Program Overview and Goals
Welcome to the University of Utah College of Pharmacy Faculty Mentor / Student Mentee Program! This program is designed to promote the professional development of our pharmacy students. Each PharmD student is assigned a faculty mentor who will serve as their mentor for the duration of their time in the program.
Students are required to meet with their faculty mentor at least once during each semester of the PharmD program. During this meeting, students and mentors will discuss items included in the mentor checklist (academic progress, curriculum vitae, co-curricular event reflection, etc.). Students must take the initiative to contact their mentor to schedule the meeting at least 2 weeks prior to the mentor checklist submission deadline. Once the student submits the online mentor checklist, it is automatically sent via email to the faculty mentor so that all relevant documents may be reviewed in advance. The faculty mentor will then sign the completed mentor checklist following the meeting if they feel the student has demonstrated appropriate effort on completion of the items. The meetings can occur in-person, by phone, or by a virtual format such as Zoom or Teams.
This webpage has been developed to provide resources for faculty mentors. You will find various pharmacy year-specific files along with a variety of resources that may be helpful for answering various mentee questions or resolving other issues. The mentor assignment list is also located within this link. Another helpful resource includes “Frequently Asked Questions” regarding the mentoring process.
Because this mentoring program is integrated with the Professional Development Seminar (PDS) course series, the pharmacy year-specific files also contain the PDS syllabus (for that specific professional year and semester with its designated professionalism theme) which not only contains the course overview, but also, the schedule of PDS events planned for the student with designated deadline dates for completion of mentor checklist, reflections, and other assignments. These materials are provided as a means to familiarize the faculty mentor with the items the student will be preparing for the upcoming mentoring meeting. Students have access to these forms on the PDS Canvas site.
When students send an email to the faculty member to set up a future meeting (prior to the end of the semester), the faculty member should provide a timely response so that faculty are also providing solid professional role modeling for the student. The faculty member should also check any filters on their email so that student emails will not be routed to a less frequented site (such as a spam file). Students or faculty who feel that the assigned relationship is not being productive, can contact the mentoring committee chair, Dr. Orlando, for review and possible re-assignment. (Example: A faculty member going on sabbatical should contact the mentoring committee chair to reassign the student during the faculty mentor’s absence; or, the student mentee requests re-assignment because a faculty member has not responded to emails.)
Thank you for your participation in the COP Mentoring Program and playing a vital role in the professionalization of our pharmacy students.
If faculty have additional questions regarding the Mentoring Program, please contact:
Trish Orlando, PharmD | patricia.orlando@pharm.utah.edu
Professional Development Seminar Co-coursemaster
Mentoring Committee Chair
Elizabeth Bald, PharmD |elizabeth.bald@pharm.utah.edu
Professional Development Seminar Co-coursemaster
Co-Curriculum Committee Chair
