The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3 - 61

Mentoring Relationships and Leadership Capacity

of resident assistants' leadership capacities.
Housing and residence life administrators
should strive to interact frequently in both informal and formal capacities with resident assistants because there is a measurable benefit.
Findings from this study supported the assumption that gender match and race match
mentor-protégé pairs do not significantly differ
from cross-race and cross-gender mentor-protégé pairs on leadership capacity. This finding
is very useful because there may be a limited
number of racially diverse or non-binary gendered backgrounds for potential protégés.

. . . those who mentor resident
assistants not only benefit the
protégé but also others they
encounter. This may increase
retention efforts and student
satisfaction with their collegiate
experiences.

Therefore, being mentored by someone of
a different race or gender is not disadvantageous; what is most important is that the resident assistant has been mentored. Any type
of mentor including housing and residence
life administrators on a college or university campus can impact a resident assistant's
leadership capacity.

Institutions of higher education can also
benefit from mentoring relationships with resident assistants. Stakeholders in higher education (administrators, faculty, students, alumni,
donors) acknowledge matriculation, retention,
and graduation of students as a priority (Tinto,
2006). Students who aid in these efforts are
valuable; how they are developed and mentored is worthy of study. Therefore, those who
mentor resident assistants not only benefit the
protégé but also others they encounter. This
may increase retention efforts and student
satisfaction with their collegiate experiences
(Astin, 1984).

EVIDENCE-BASED RESEARCH,
PRACTICE, AND FUTURE
RESEARCH
Many leadership researchers have utilized the
entire MSL sample, yet few have sought to seek
replication of findings within sub-samples.
This study was designed by the researcher so
that it could be replicated for different subsamples or student group types (orientation
leaders, fraternity/sorority members, student
organization members) from the MSL data.
In addition, this study utilized researcherselected covariates of interest, though other
researchers may choose to use the data in
another way. For example, they may want to
explore the most significant type of mentor or
mentor-protégé race and gender pairings and
students' major-such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors-
as opposed to using major as a measure of
control. This would be particularly interesting
for majors with a predominance of one gender
(Engineering) or race (African American
Studies). Finally, other researchers may choose

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3

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