What is a Mentor?
“Mentor: Someone who’s hindsight can become your foresight.” – Unknown
An ideal faculty mentor is someone who is:
- Available
- Flexible
- Discrete
- Knowledgeable about their department and the university
- Experienced in the profession
- Professional
- Approachable
The role of a faculty mentor is to provide the following to his/her mentee:
Although the College offers guidelines pertaining to its expectations for teaching, scholarship, and service, each department has its own unique characteristics, so it is difficult to standardize the role of the mentor in this area. At the same time, however, it is these very differences, sometimes vast, sometimes no more than a nuance, that can be confusing to a faculty member not familiar with the university, and which make mentoring a valuable and necessary process.
Aside from the more straightforward, tenure-related issues, a new faculty member might be trying to navigate around other, minor questions that s/he might prefer to ask of the mentor rather than a chair or a less-known faculty member. The mentor should attempt to establish a comfortable, open relationship with the mentee so s/he will feel comfortable asking questions that may seem “silly” or of a sensitive nature.
For example:
To what extent can I ask for a particular schedule next semester?
Can I ask to teach (or not to teach) a particular class?
I don’t feel that my class is going well. Would you drop in and give me feedback?
Professor X is giving me a bit of a hard time. What should I do?
I think the Chair has given me too much to do this semester and I can’t keep up, but I’m afraid it will look bad if I say something.
In order for the mentee to feel comfortable (see #2), the mentor must make it clear that anything the mentee says will be kept in confidence.
Everyone, whether or not they are new to teaching, can benefit from a little informal feedback, as long as it’s not of the unsolicited sort. The mentor should offer, for example, to go watch a class, with the understanding, of course, that it is strictly between mentor and mentee, and certainly not mandatory. Mentors might also offer to hear a practice run for a talk, or review a paper.
Mentors should be willing to advocate for new faculty members on issues that may arise, such as course scheduling, class limits, and service workload.
Mentor Responsibilities
Faculty mentors are expected to fulfill specific responsibilities:
- If at all possible, mentors should contact mentees sometime during late summer, before the school year begins. Mentors may or may not be able to meet the mentees at that time.
- Mentors should meet with new faculty members after orientation has taken place. Mentees will be processing the vast amount of information they have received, and may have questions or need clarification. Though mentors are not expected to have all the answers, they should be able to refer mentees to the appropriate sources.
- Mentors should communicate with the Chairs or Directors to let them know how the faculty member is doing. Again, mentors should not reveal any confidential information, but should be able to give a general report. Conversely, the Chairs or Directors can make suggestions to the mentors, or ask them to pass on information.
- When the new faculty members are preparing their annual faculty review form, mentors should be available to help them through the process. While it is not, of course, necessary that mentors be wielding binders and hole punchers, the new faculty members might appreciate that the mentor has taken a first look-through to make sure everything is in place.
- When possible, mentors should help mentees establish a reasonable scholarly agenda that will satisfy College requirements and further the new faculty members’ career in the profession in general.
- Everyone feels overwhelmed at some point, and new faculty members are no different. Helping a mentee sort out priorities is a task that can often avoid a great deal of stress later on.
- Mentors should help mentees network, introducing them to colleagues, staff, and administrators. Outside the University, mentors can, when possible, help mentees develop relationships in the profession.
