The Development of Mentorship Programs at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Historical biographies of eminent persons frequently highlight the role of mentors in their development (Bloom, 1985; Feldman, 1986; Pizzini, 1985; Torrance, 1984; VanTassel-Baska, 1985). For example, in ancient Greece, Socrates was mentor to Plato, Plato to Aristotle, and Aristotle to Alexander the Great (Cox & Daniel, 1983). The term mentor itself is derived from Greek mythology, The Odyssey. Homer tells us that Mentor, probably the goddess Athena in disguise, served as a teacher and a counselor to Odysseus' son Telemachus during Odysseus' long absence from his family, guiding the boy to become a man. In medieval England, mentoring was institutionalized into the educational system at Oxford and Cambridge, becoming a main feature of moral and intellectual education (Zorman, 1993). In recent years, mentoring has received renewed emphasis in the education of the gifted and talented (e.g., Clasen & Clasen, 1977; Zorman, 1993).

Mentoring Relationships in Chinese History

Throughout Chinese history, the value of mentoring also has been well documented. For example, secondary students in Hong Kong generally read about the mentoring relationship between Yue Fei, a hero in Song Dynasty, and his mentor in archery, Zhou Tong. With a vision to serve his beleaguered country against the Northern Barbarians, Yue buried himself in studying the art of war in Sun Zi and sought coaching from the famous archer Zhou Tong. Yue's two successful attempts to hit the bull's eye won Zhou's admiration and he gave Yue his own favorite bow and taught Yue his art and craft of archery. After the death of Zhou, Yue visited his graveyard on the first and the fifteenth days of each month, drinking and shooting three arrows with Zhou's bow to commemorate him.

Another example was the mentoring of Fu Cong (Fu Ts'ong), the famous contemporary pianist and musician, by his father Fu Lei, the artist and writer. After Fu Cong left for Poland to compete in the Chopin recital tournament at the age of twenty, Fu Lei maintained the mentoring relationship through writing letters to Fu Cong. Fu Min, Fu Cong's brother, attested that his father wrote a total of 190 letters during Fu Cong's 20-year sojourn outside China. Interestingly, Fu Lei characterized his relationship with his son as friendship as well as father-son relationship, and wrote that their experience together had provided opportunities for both to learn from each other.

Bai Xian-yong, the contemporary creative novelist, provided a third example. In his autobiography, Bai wrote about his many mentors throughout his early life and his career as a writer. As a sickly child afflicted with tuberculosis and confined to his room at home, Bai was impressed by Lao-yang, the storytelling chef who fascinated him with legends and folklore. In his high school, his teacher, Li Ya-yun, introduced him to the poetic world of Li Yu, the emperor-poet who lost his country and lived in captivity for the rest of his life, and opened to Bai the world of Chinese literature. Li Ya-yun also helped Bai publish his first essay in a magazine, making him feel that his dream of becoming a writer might one day come true. In his undergraduate years, while Bai was a top student in his engineering study, he followed his passion and changed his major to gain admission to study foreign languages, contrary to the wishes of his parents. His decision to study English literature was partly influenced by Li Ya-yun who advised that the world of English literature would extend his horizon of creative fiction writing. His decision was also influenced by his reading of the writings of Xia Ji-an, the writer-Professor in his Department of Foreign Languages. Xia, his third mentor, also taught him skills in writing fictions and helped him publish his first novel. Bai wrote that all three mentors had an immense impact on his integration of writing skills of Chinese and European-American novelists, and his writings of characters or personalities living in between cultures.

These examples illustrate some of the characteristics that distinguish mentoring from other relationships as outlined by Zorman (1993). These characteristics include shared passion for a specific interest area, a match of teaching and learning style, a special lifelong bond of trust, a mutual perception of symmetry or equality in relationship as the student advances in knowledge and skills, and a sharing of lifestyle as the student gradually adopts the patterns of the professional. Thus, the mentoring relationship provided Yue Fei, Fu Cong, and Bai Xin-yong with the type of experiential learning and emotional support that enhanced real life skills and competencies (see Ellingson et al., 1986; Pizzini, 1985; Torrance, 1984). In addition, the intense learning experiences stimulated Yue, Fu, and Bai to integrate their nascent talents and interests through rapidly achieved insights that became related to career and lifelong passions. In this manner, such crystallizing experiences helped Yue, Fu, and Bai make the transformation from potential to creative behavior and performance (Walters & Gardner, 1992).

Mentorship for Gifted Students

In gifted education, mentoring has been regarded as a valuable option for meeting the needs of gifted and talented students whose skills and ability levels are beyond the scope of usual school resources. In recent years, the recommended use of mentors has grown, especially for extremely precocious students (Lupkowski, Assouline, & Stanley, 1990), for talented students who have exhausted the resources of the school (Reilly, 1992), and for underachieving, learning disabled, economically disadvantaged, and female gifted students (Clasen & Clasen, 1997; Torrance, Goff, & Satterfield, 1998).

Typically, a mentorship refers to an extended relationship between a professional or mentor and a student over a period of several months. The student, variously called a protege, intern, apprentice, mentee, or assistant, is usually a high school student who visits the mentor at the job site on a scheduled basis to learn first-hand the activities, responsibilities, problems, and lifestyles associated with the mentor's profession. This career exploration orientation is reflected in the statement of Cox, Daniel, and Boston (1985), who advocated that mentorship has its goal in "the shaping of a student's life outlook" (p. 59). Thus, the goal of mentorship is the growth and development of the student beyond intellectual and skill areas.

While this goal may be less practical in some short-term mentorships, the benefits of mentorships are fully recognized (Beck, 1989; Edlind & Haensley, 1985; Runions & Smyth, 1985). Clasen and Clasen (1997) summarized some of the main benefits for students as providing high-level learning experiences, providing opportunities for talent development, aiding career exploration, promoting psychosocial development in areas of responsibility, self-directed learning, feelings of competence, sense of identity, ethics, and self-monitoring of feelings, and highlighting the connections between students' interests and the larger world. In addition, through mentorships, the contacts between school and community resources are established, and mentors are provided with renewed energy and enthusiasm through stimulation of new ideas, long-term friendships, and personal satisfaction (Clasen & Clasen, 1997).

Structuring a Mentorship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong 

The Programs for the Gifted and Talented at the Chinese University of Hong Kong formulated some general guidelines for arranging a mentorship for a gifted or talented student. The guidelines are summarized as follows. Students, who may be self-referred or referred by teachers or parents, need to demonstrate their desire for this educational option and their ability to commit to a partner relationship with a mentor. All participating students are assessed on their needs, interests, abilities, and learning styles prior to entering the program. Mentors are recruited from the University's faculties. Teaching staff and graduate students who indicated their interest are included in the potential mentor pool. Information is compiled about their interests, disciplines, specialization or areas of expertise, as well as their experience in working with young people and gifted students. In matching mentors and mentees, initial compatibility is determined by considering the data from mentors and mentees. The final selection is not made until the mentee has visited or met informally with the mentor, preferably at the place of work of the mentor.

Throughout this arrangement, the program coordinator provides orientations to both the mentor and the mentee, helping them to identify their roles and responsibilities, and to work out a plan or schedule for a specific area of study. Both keep a journal of activities, thoughts, and learning experiences to ensure that the original goals in entering the mentorship program are achieved. Systematic feedback from teachers, parents, and program coordinator also serve as formative evaluation of the mentorship. Formal evaluation using standardized measures focuses on the areas of academic performance, motivation and attitudes toward school, and self-esteem and confidence. A final or summative evaluation is done by all interested parties, including mentor, mentee, school personnel, teachers, and parents when a final product brings closure to the mentorship. The final product may be in the form of a written report, a science project, an art show or exhibition, or a presentation in which mentees are provided with an opportunity to share their work and learning experience.

A Survey of Potential Mentors at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

Prior to developing mentorship programs at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Programs for the Gifted and Talented conducted a survey at the University to identify faculty members who were interested in mentoring gifted and talented students from secondary schools. The brief questionnaire included questions such as: "Are you interested to become a mentor for gifted and talented secondary students?" "What is your area of specialty?" "By what means would you like to communicate with your students?" Among more than 1170 faculty members from seven faculties, 121 faculty members from 50 academic departments and units responded positively to the survey questionnaire; their specialties and preferences are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1 Common Specialties and Preferences of Potential Mentors

                                                   Percentage
                                                   of Mentors

Specialties
Biological Sciences                                  28.1
Medical and Health Sciences                          18.2
Computer Sciences/Information Engineering             8.3
Physics                                               7.4
Psychology                                            7.4
English                                               6.6
Mathematics                                           6.6

Preferences
Number of mentee
  Two to three                                       54.5
  One                                                39.7
Grades of mentee
  Forms 6 to 7                                       55.4
  Forms 4 to 5                                       33.9
  Forms 1 to 3                                       15.7
Modes of communication
  Personal meetings                                  87.6
  E-mail                                             82.6
  Written communication                              16.5
Frequency of communication
  On need basis                                      65.3
  Monthly                                            31.4
Duration of mentorship
  One year                                           43.8
  Six months                                         29.8
  Three months                                       13.2

Note. Specialties claimed by 5% or less of potential mentors are omitted. Preferences indicated by 10% or less of potential mentors are not shown.

The majority of potential mentors came from the physical, biological, medical and health sciences rather than the social and behavioral sciences. They preferred accepting one to three mentees from upper grades and communicating with mentees through personal meetings and via e-mail, monthly or on a need basis, and wanted the mentoring relationship to last six months to a year. Particularly noteworthy are the written comments by some potential mentors that advanced technology, such as electronic communication, may be used to broaden and structure the mentorship program, alleviating problems of finding time for meetings, scheduling meeting times, and containing travel costs. The Young Writers' Workshop Program pioneered by Professor M. K. Ho at the University is an example of such a mentoring program.

The Chinese University Young Writers' Workshop Program: An Example

This specific mentorship program grew from a pilot scheme of the Chinese Creative Writing Program, "Read More and Write More," originally targeted for students weak in Chinese creative writing (Ho, 1996). Subsequently, the scheme was expanded to include students interested or talented in Chinese creative writing. In the program, junior secondary students submit their essays for review by a panel of nine mentors who are either university professors or experienced teachers in Chinese language and literature, or well-known contemporary Chinese writers in Hong Kong. Unlike traditional mentorship programs that emphasize the one-to-one relationship, this program is based on the interactive relationships between multiple mentors and multiple students. While it generally operates on a distance-learning mode, participating students are introduced to mentors in the meetings and writing workshops organized periodically by mentors. Based on each of the students' submitted writings, mentors comment and suggest changes to help students raise their writing ability through metacognitive awareness, and creative and logical thinking. Since the initiation of this program in 1996, more than 150 students from 40 secondary schools in Hong Kong have benefited from this program. Each participating student has submitted 30 essays each year or about one essay every ten days. A report on each student's overall progress in creative writing is sent to students based on 15 submissions in mid-year and on 30 submissions at the end of a year.

Starting in 1999, the Chinese Creative Writing Program was expanded into the Young Writers' Workshop Program, exploring mentorships using information technology and telecommunications. With the program's own website, students submitted their Chinese writings electronically, and mentors had the choices to respond and mark on-line students' writing. Mentors may also respond with verbal comments, and students may download on-line sound files and listen to mentors' comments. The website is maintained by six talented grade 10 students. The cumulative records of student writings have also made it possible to establish resource gallery of exemplary writings such that students can exchange views and learn from each other's writings.

Future Directions: A Model of Levels of Mentoring

With the positive responses for the Young Writers' Workshop Program and its website component, it is recognized that the role of information technology in mentorship holds great promise for meeting the needs of gifted and talented students, suggesting that the development of mentorship programs in other talent areas may be along similar lines. Such advances may help alleviate some of the perennial problems of finding time for meetings, scheduling meeting times, and containing travel costs, and at the same time offer affordable options capable of transmitting images and sounds that mentors and mentees feel comfortable using for mentoring. More importantly, telecommunication may provide opportunities for enlarging the mentor pool and increasing the diversity of mentors for more students. Indeed, such mentoring through interactions via telecommunication should be regarded as a form of mentoring and can be named telementoring, similar to tele-health or telemedicine in medicine (Nickelson, 1998). However, tele-mentoring needs to be regarded as an additional and alternative opportunity that complements the one-to-one mentoring partnership. Thus, a comprehensive and broadened approach to mentoring should address different types or levels of mentoring services and activities, ranging from telementoring designed to suit a majority of students to the one-to-one relationship that responds specifically to the talents demonstrated by a small number of students.

Based on this conceptualization, a model encompassing three different levels of mentoring at the Chinese University of Hong Kong is suggested. The lowest level or Level 1 mentoring is an initial stage of mentoring primarily accomplished via telementoring between multiple mentors and multiple mentees in specific knowledge content areas. This level of mentoring is open to students or participants in various gifted programs at the University. The highest level or Level 3 mentoring is the conventional one-to-one mentorship programs between a mentor and mentees who have demonstrated the need for this educational option by their outstanding achievements and specific talents. While mentees may progress directly from Level 1 mentoring to Level 3 mentoring, it is anticipated that some mentees require more specific individual attention and guidance beyond telementoring, yet they do not require the specific one-to-one mentoring. Therefore, a process of double mentoring as suggested by Clasen and Hanson (1987) has been carefully considered as Level 2 mentoring.

Specifically, double mentoring involves a teacher-mentor and an expert-mentor. The teacher-mentor concentrates on the developmental needs of the student, helps initiate and coordinate the student's relationship with the expert-mentor, and is involved more heavily both cognitively and emotionally with the student. In contrast, the expert-mentor focuses on the specific professional knowledge and skills that the student may acquire, and the relationship with the student is more instrumental and less emotionally involved. As Level 2 mentoring in the suggested model, the expert-mentors are the faculty members of the University, and the teacher-mentors may well be schoolteachers, university undergraduates or graduates, or even peer mentors in the students' schools (see Prillaman & Richardson, 1989).

The use of peer mentoring is based on the assumption that both mentors and mentees benefit from the mentoring relationship, as peer mentoring provides an opportunity for the peer mentors to exercise responsibility and practice leadership skills. To ensure successful mentorships, these peer mentors need to be trained. The Creative Leadership Training Program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong aims precisely to train gifted students from different secondary schools to become student leaders, and to practice their leadership skills by assuming leading roles in student activities and peer support programs in their own schools (see Chan, in press). Thus the parallel development of both the leadership training program and the mentorship program may be mutually enhancing, and fits nicely into the overall scheme of University-school collaboration in promoting quality education in Hong Kong (Chan, 1998). While mentoring is not a novel phenomenon and has been well accepted and valued in Chinese societies, the systematic development of mentorship programs for gifted students in Hong Kong is relatively recent. Future developments warrant careful evaluation of the use of information technology, the involvement of peer mentors or other teacher-mentors, and the effectiveness of three levels of mentoring in the setting up of mentorship programs for gifted and talented students in Hong Kong.

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David W. Chan is Professor at the Department of Educational Psychology, and program supervisor of the Programs for the Gifted and Talented at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Manuscript submitted March, 1999.

Revision accepted August, 2000.