In my volunteer leadership position at the North American Food Systems Network (NAFSN), our director, Kim Hines, asked me to host a podcast episode that would serve as educational content for a micro-course titled 'The Non-Formal Mentorship Model'.

The podcast will be in collaboration with Dr. Brian Raison, who is a Professor at Ohio State University, and Eleanor Baker, an Extension Organizational Development Program Associate at NC State Cooperative Extension.

Dr. Raison has conducted several years of research on mentorship programs and has constructed a mentorship program framework to ensure benefits of the relationship go both ways. Eleanor has worked with Dr. Raison to implement this program in her workplace, in an agriculture extension office.

The micro-course that the podcast will be a part of will serve to educate food system practitioners on how to meaningfully contribute to a mentorship relationship from both the mentor and mentee position. This mentorship framework emphasizes flexibility, practicality, and developing meaningful connection without extensive mentorship structure.

Within this course, there will be snippets of the podcast that participants will listen to to learn about:
1) the research behind the mentorship framework
2) how the framework has been implemented
3) what participants have to say about their mentorship
relationships

As the podcast host, my job is to:
1) coordinate scheduling for podcast recording
2) host, record, and lead two podcast episodes

The first interview with Dr. Brian Raison and Eleanor Baker regarding the research and implementation of the framework took place in August 2026. An interview with the participants is being scheduled for November 2026.

The micro-course will be offered in a synchronous, online 2-hour course, every other month, beginning in January 2027.