The UIC Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health launched an Alumni Mentorship Program in Fall 2016.  Maternal and child health students in their final year of the MPH program have the opportunity to be matched with a mentor for the remainder of their program.  Students gain knowledge of the public health job market and the MCH field while receiving advice about professional and personal development opportunities. There is a strong focus on developing networking skills usable in pursuing specific career goals and interests. This program increases students’ self-awareness, builds job-seeking skills, and prepares them for their journey toward becoming leaders in the MCH workforce.

In addition to the Alumni Mentorship Program, MCH students can participate in the Undergraduate Mentorship Program. Beginning in 2017, the Center has been matching an increasing number of MCH MPH students with UIC undergraduate public health majors in the MCH Undergraduate Mentor Program. In this program, MCH students are matched with rising junior and senior undergraduates in the UIC Public Health Program for an academic year. The aim of this program is to provide greater knowledge and awareness of the MCH field, help students understand their options in the broader field of public health, and facilitate undergraduates’ access to professional and personal development opportunities. It also allows MPH students to focus on their professional development skills as well as build their MCH network while supporting undergraduate students exploring the public health and MCH fields.

MPH Mentoring

2023 Mentorship Party

The alumni mentors are graduates of maternal and child health degree programs at UIC and have at least two years of work experience. If you are interested in participating in this program as an alumni mentor, please contact coemch@uic.edu. Both the alumni and students fill out a short application form to aid in the matching process.

Alumni mentors are invited to join a welcome/orientation call, and expected to participate in a virtual workshop each semester and meet with their mentees twice a semester (either virtually or in person). Student mentees are required to participate in an orientation session, attend both virtual workshops, and meet with their mentors at least twice a semester. The program’s workshops focus on job searching and career development, and all alumni – whether serving as a mentor or not in that particular year – are invited to participate as resources for students in both workshops, providing advice and insight, and answering questions about their experiences and knowledge of the field.

All students and alumni participating in the Alumni Mentorship Program receive a Program packet at the start of the year, which provides program requirements and details, along with the agreement form they will complete in their first conversation as they determine their communication methods and goals together. Students and alumni also receive monthly emails from the program coordinators from September through April. The monthly emails provide a topic of focus and include suggestions for questions to ask each other or other conversation topics, should a pair find that helpful in their communications.

Undergraduate Mentoring

The student mentors are MCH MPH students in any year of the program, and the undergraduate mentees are part of the undergraduate public health program, ideally directly interested in maternal and child health. In the past, matches were structured as 1-to-1 pairs, but the program has moved to a group mentorship model in recent years. MCH MPH students are matched in small groups with undergraduate students; typically, there are 1-2 second-year MPH students, 1-2 first-year MPH students, and 2-4 undergraduate students per small group.

Undergraduate and graduate students are expected to attend an orientation session and meet twice per semester (either virtually or in person). The program coordinators also offer group meetings for all participants, providing professional development, networking, and leadership skill-building, typically with the added support from select alumni of the UIC CoE-MCH.

Interested undergraduates are asked to submit a brief form that outlines their needs, interests, and goals. The program coordinators match graduate and undergraduate students using information from interest forms, academic alignment, and other student survey data. If you are interested in participating in this program as a graduate mentor or an undergraduate mentee, please contact coemch@uic.edu.