Mentor Development Series: Cultivating Effective Mentoring Skills

This monthly series consists of 90-minute in-person workshops designed to prepare faculty mentors to be effective and successful in their roles. Designed for both training naive participants and previously trained mentors across ranks and tracks, this series offers both repeating (“required”) and new (“elective”) workshops annually. Via presentation of evidence-based best practices, these sessions use an open discussion format, breakout groups, and hypothetical case scenarios as the impetus for participants to reflect on their own experiences in mentoring — as a mentee and/or as a mentor. Workshops are aligned with and guided by Northwestern’s Foundational Principles of Effective Faculty Mentoring (Intentional, Relational, Holistic).

If your mentoring focus is primarily on early career faculty within the medical school, we encourage you to participate in the NUCATS Mentor Training Certificate Program. If you are primarily engaged in training predoctoral and postdoctoral level mentees, we recommend you participate in the Provost’s Advancing Mentoring Excellence Program as the content will be more directly relevant to your mentoring.

Register for a Workshop (Required)

The workshops are open to faculty of all ranks and career tracks who hold appointments in the Feinberg School of Medicine, are members of NUCATS, or who collaborate with faculty involved in biomedical research. Attendance will be capped at 42 participants. Spots will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. 

The 2025-26 Mentor Development Series will be held in-person on the third Wednesday of the month from 9 to 10:30 a.m. starting in October 2025 and ending in June 2026. Registration is now open.

Register here

Registration guide

Workshop Schedule and FAQ

To learn more about the 2025-26 Mentor Development Series schedule, as well as answers to Frequently Asked Questions, please follow the links below:

2025-26 Workshop Schedule

FAQ

Certificate Program

Faculty may also seek to complete the Mentor Training Certificate Program. To earn a certificate, faculty must participate in three required workshop sessions and three additional elective workshop sessions. Completion of the NUCATS Mentor Training Certificate Program fulfills NIH requirements for faculty mentors on T32 and other training grants. Learn more about the MTCP here.