Spelman-Morehouse

The Spelman-Morehouse Directed Reading Program (DRP) is a math mentorship program for students at Spelman and Morehouse to work with grad students and junior researchers on semester-long reading projects in math. Meetings take place over Zoom. 

The DRP aims to:

• provide a casual, stress-free environment for students to explore an area of math not normally covered in undergraduate classes, and

• facilitate 1:1 mentorship from people who are a little further along the academic and career path. 

At the beginning of the semester, the DRP matches students with mentors based on shared math interests. Each student-mentor pair then decides on a topic to study and a book to read over the semester.

Students are expected to:

• meet with their mentors weekly for about an hour to discuss the week's reading,

• commit at least 2 hours each week, outside the meetings, to independently work through the text, and

• give a 15 min presentation at the end of the semester that introduces their topic to the other students and mentors.

Mentors are expected to:

• attend a virtual mentor training/orientation at the beginning of the semester,

• help facilitate the choosing of a topic to study,

• guide their students through the learning of the topic, including outlining a study plan for them to follow and answering questions, and

• help their students prepare for the presentations at the end.

The DRP has some funds to:

• offer (modest) stipends to students and mentors,

• reimburse students and mentors for books purchased in their DRP projects, and

• provide mentors with licensed Zoom accounts.

The DRP is based on similar programs at other institutions. For a list of some of these programs, please see the DRP Network.