Workshop on Mentoring
Faculty
September 25, 2013
3:00-5:15
Faculty Senate Chambers
Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and
the Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity
Agenda
• Introductions
• Overview of best practices and research on
mentoring
• Goals and expectations for mentoring
• Practical matters: Schedule, frontloading, critical
incidents, constructive feedback
• Dysfunctional behaviors
• Break
• Stressors for women and underrepresented faculty
• Mentoring for interdisciplinary faculty
• Scenarios
Who is Mentor?
• In Homer’s Odyssey, Mentor was teacher and guide to
Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, while Odysseus returned from
Trojan war.
• Mentor illustrates a male guiding another male, but Mentor had
his own guide, Athena, goddess of wisdom (who took
Mentor’s form and served as companion and adviser to
Telemachus).
• Would the relationship have been different if Athena had
advised a young female or revealed her gender to her young
male companion?
• The issue of gender in mentoring issues continues.
(See COACHE survey results--handout)
Research Findings
• Faculty members with mentors report “more career success
and socio-emotional support than faculty members without
one.” (Sorcinelli and Yun, 2004)
• “Mentoring constellations” are positively associated with
career and job satisfaction; individuals with more than one
mentor seem to have greater career benefits. (van Emmerik in
Sorcinelli and Yun, 2004)
• Participants in a 2-day workshop connecting junior and senior
women faculty had significant gains in total number of
publications, total number of publications in top-tier journals,
and total number of federal grants, compared to nonparticipants with similar range of abilities (American
Economics Association Committee on the Status of Women;
Inside Higher Education, 1/04/2010)
Traditional Mentoring: Hierarchical
Relationship with Two Types of Functions
• Career Functions
– Coaching
– Sponsorship
– Protection
– Exposure and viability
– Challenging assignments
• Psychosocial Functions
– Role modeling
– Acceptance and confirmation
– Counseling
– Friendship
(Duff, 1999)
Current Models: Mentoring Networks
• Not a “top-down, one-to-one relationship in which
an experienced faculty member guides and
supports a new or early-career faculty member…
mentoring is best undertaken by a number of faculty
members, rather than one individual.”
• “Multi-mentor model”: more realistic in “an
increasingly complex and changing academic
environment”
• “Networking model” vs “grooming model”
(Sorcinelli and Yun, 2004)
Types of Mentors in Potential
“Mentoring Constellation”
• Lead, “at-large” mentor (traditional)
• Informal mentor(s)
• Responsibility-related mentors (research, teaching,
service)
• Project-oriented mentor(s)
• Group mentoring
• Peer mentoring
• Groups for writing support, etc.
• External mentors
(Moody, 2010)
Developing Mentoring Programs
• In most departments mentoring needs to be
more deliberate and intentional whether
there is a formal structure or not (Bensimon,
Ward and Sanders, 2000).
• Department head and senior faculty should
determine purpose(s) and structure, in
conjunction with junior faculty and using
“best practices” from literature.
• Both mentors and “protegés/mentees”
require preparation if not training.
Criteria for Good Mentoring Pairs
(or Groups)
• Compatibility in career goals
• Commonalities in personal circumstances
and interests (e.g., family status, personal
interests and activities)
• Productivity in common areas
• New pairings (no previous relationship)
• Similar time commitments
(Bensimon et al)
Characteristics of Good Mentors
• Productive in teaching, research and institutional
citizenship
• Familiar with department, college and campus
• Positive about their positions
• Politically aware
• Understanding of challenges for new faculty
• Supportive and willing to reach out to new faculty
• Good listeners
(Bensimon et al)
Goals for the Mentoring Relationship
UC San Diego Faculty Mentoring Program
Short-term goals
•Familiarization with the campus and its environment
•Networking—introduction to colleagues, identification of other
possible mentors.
•Developing awareness—help new faculty understand policies
and procedures that are relevant to the new faculty member’s
work.
•Constructive criticism and encouragement, compliments on
achievements.
•Helping to sort out priorities—budgeting time, balancing
research, teaching, and service.
Long-term goals
•Developing visibility and prominence within the profession.
•Achieving career advancement.
Discussion
• What kind of mentoring program does your
department provide for new faculty?
• How are mentors identified?
• How do mentors and new faculty prepare for
the mentoring experience?
• How do mentors function beyond one-onone interaction with new faculty member?
(e.g., participation in annual review, peer
review of teaching, etc.)
• Ideas for making your mentoring program
more effective?
Bare-Bones Timeline: Mentoring New Faculty
• First two weeks: Review orientation info, answer questions
• Midway through first semester: answer questions about
research, tenure process, balance of teaching, research,
service. Develop writing and research goals.
• Second semester: touch base re progress with research and
teaching
• End of first year: develop teaching and research goals for
summer and year 2 (annual review, if head)
• Start of year 2: assess progress, review plans for research,
conferences, manuscripts, grants
• End of each subsequent year: develop plans, assess
progress
(Bensimon et al 2000)
Front Loading – Start Early
Front loading brings dividends for the future. Do not
wait for a problem before meeting with mentee. The
mentor should initiate the meetings.
Ideas for first meeting:
•Get acquainted, definitions and expectations of mentoring
•Importance of confidentiality
•Decide on ground rules for the mentoring relationships
•Schedule next few meetings – include other faculty. Meet at
least monthly to develop the relationship
•Encourage mentee to cultivate other mentors, get second
opinions
•Listen and ask questions
What to Include in Ground Rules
• How often to meet? Open door? Time constraints?
• Multiple mentors and sources of information
• What do we each expect to get from/provide to
this relationship? – review manuscripts?
Collaborate? Moral support?
• How does mentoring feed into or intersect
department’s annual review, SME, and
tenure/promotion processes?
• How to handle disagreements
• Confidentiality
• Your thoughts?
Critical Incidents
• From “Keeping Our Faculty of Color Symposium”: Faculty
decide in the first 90 days if they will stay at an institution.
• Review list of typical stressors for new faculty. Brainstorm
ways to mitigate them
• Encourage mentee to talk about both positive and negative
aspects of faculty life
• If mentee encounters difficulties or critical incidents
• Listen.
• Do not dismiss, deny, or rationalize them.
• Do not try to solve them, but know the appropriate campus
resources. (e.g., HR workshop on coaching, OIED harassment and
discrimination reporting, OFD resources, Asst and Assoc
Professors’ Communities)
Constructive Feedback
• Work from a shared baseline – before you begin, review the
mentee’s goals for the day
• Frame questions in terms of your own lack of
understanding. Direct questions or criticism to the work,
not the mentee
• Avoid asking questions with a demeaning tone
• Suggest other resources and people, brainstorm about
how to improve the work
• Elicit discussion about the approach – ask what are the
advantages and disadvantages
• If the mentee isn’t doing all he/she is responsible for, point
out the problem, help develop skills
Advancing your Mentee’s Career
• Suggest conferences, grant opportunities,
professional development opportunities, etc.
• Collaborate on a research or teaching project
• Introduce your mentee to other faculty
• Provide constructive feedback on manuscripts,
grant proposals, teaching
• Nominate mentee for awards or for invited
presentations or panels
Dysfunctional Behaviors – How to Undercut
the Relationship
•
•
•
•
Gossip
Fail to protect confidential information
Violate the ground rules you set up
Do not proactively set meetings and contact
mentee, wait for mentee to contact you.
• Examples?
Mentoring Women
and Underrepresented Minorities
Effective mentors for women faculty, faculty
of color, and interdisciplinary faculty need to
balance advice for surviving in the current
system with a commitment to changing the
institution
Challenges for Women and Underrepresented
Minorities
•
•
•
•
•
Overt Sexism and Racism
Unconscious Bias
“Cultural Taxation”
“Women’s Work”
Work/Life Integration
Strategies for Mentoring Women and
Underrepresented Minorities
• Advocate Cultural Change: Challenge Overt
Sexism and Racism and Confront
Unconscious Bias
• Be a Champion: Protect Faculty from
Excessive Service Responsibilities
• Assist Faculty in Developing a Plan of Work
that Balances Research, Teaching and
Service
• Act as a Role Model with Respect to
Work/Life Integration
Challenges for Interdisciplinary Faculty
•
•
•
•
“Multiple Fields-One Body” Problem
Overwork
Possible Resentment of Departmental Colleagues
Disciplinary Bias against Interdisciplinary Work
Strategies for Mentoring
Interdisciplinary Faculty
• Advocate Interdisciplinary Assessment/Evaluation
• Champion New Work and New Ideas
• Assist Faculty Member in Promoting their Work,
through Presentations, Informal Discussions, etc.
• Guide in Developing a Plan of Work
Scenarios
Two scenarios – choose one to discuss in small group
1.New faculty member was a controversial choice due to
area of research
2.Minority faculty member was told by another faculty
member in a meeting “You’re our politically correct hire.
You’re qualified to teach only race-related courses.
Yes?”
Form several groups of three people for each scenario.
Scenarios
In small groups discuss
•What did they do well at individual or dept level?
•What didn’t go so well?
•What remedies can you suggest?
•If you were the mentor how would you help the
mentee?
•Are there useful self-help strategies for the mentee?
Large group discussion
References
• Bensimon, Estela M., Ward, Kelly, and Sanders, Karla. (2000) The
Department Chair’s Role in Developing New Faculty into Teachers
and Scholars. Bolton MA: Anker Publishing. Chapter 10,
“Creating Mentoring Relationships and Fostering Collegiality”
• Duff, Carolyn S. (1999) Learning from Other Women: How to
Benefit from the Knowledge, Wisdom and Experience of Female
Mentors. American Management Association
• Jaschik, Scott. “Proof that Mentoring Matters.” Inside Higher Ed
(January 4, 2010).
• Moody, JoAnn. (2010) Mentoring Early-Stage Faculty at Medical,
Law and Business Schools and Colleges and Universities. San
Diego: JoAnn Moody.
• Sorcinelli, Mary Deane, and Jung Yun. “From Mentor to Mentoring
Networks: Mentoring in the New Academy.” Change, Nov/Dec
2007, 58-61.