Center for Teaching, Learning & Academic Support
      Advancing Teaching, Research, and Creative Endeavors

 

	A mentor is a senior faculty member selected to inform, advise, and assist one or more new faculty members with their professional development. A mentor focuses on a mentee's achievements and success through a relationship that is mutually non-threatening and non-judgmental
	Mentoring is giving advice and guidance to a junior faculty concerning his or her professional development in the areas of scholarly publication and research, effective teaching, service, leadership, and appropriate documentation of their professional growth. Mentoring also includes advice to help protect a new faculty member from the demands that are inconsistent with his or her professional growth.  The assistance provided by a mentor depends upon the request of the person seeking it. The task of the mentor may include answering questions about procedures and policies (e.g., grades and make-up exams), discussing issues directly related to teaching (e.g., effective presentation and sequence of materials) and sharing experience with handling difficult teaching issues (e.g., plagiarism and cheating), etc.
	Mentoring new faculty is a sound investment. Effective mentoring can help to retain competent faculty. Because some faculty may have low self-confidence about their chances for success, they reap many benefits from being paired with a senior faculty member. The faster new faculty are acclimated to the cultural organization, the more productive and valuable they will be in helping their respective departments achieve unit goals and objectives.
	Be at least an associate professor and have an invested interest in the retention of new faculty.
	To facilitate the mentoring process, we recommend a few guidelines.

 

Mentoring Resource Menu

Mentors Directory