1. How to Create a Network of Mentors and Professional Support
Johnson Center Thursday Lunch
New and Pre-Tenure Faculty
March 1, 2018

2. Mentor is a loaded term
What is your experience with having a “mentor”?
What did your mentors do for you?
What was the nature of these relationship?
What was positive about having a mentor?
Was it always useful?

3. “Sink or Swim” Myth
“I was miserable and had to figure everything out myself, so other people should have to go through the same thing. If they can’t, then they don’t deserve to be here. Sink or swim, baby.” (“Sink or Swim”)
Privileges political and organizational savvy over disciplinary expertise and teaching potential.
Promotes an unhealthy reproduction of “pain culture.”

4. The Guru Myth
“A highly supportive all-knowing senior person who shares knowledge with them, cares for them, guides their career over a long period of time, and protects them from any evil forces in their department.” (“A New Model of Mentoring”)
Assumption: The one Great Person can provide all of the professional needs of a new colleague.
The Great Person “has the time, energy and desire to actively assist the new faculty member.” (“A New Model of Mentoring”)
Mentoring is invisible and unrewarded labor.

5. The “Secret Knowledge” Myth
When new faculty find it difficult to get “an honest, clear, and concise answer to the most basic questions.” (Source: “Sink or Swim”)
Official knowledge vs. how things really work in terms of culture, procedures, and evaluation.
Results in misinformation, insecurity, and mistakes.

6. New Faculty Members Have Wide Range of Needs
Professional development
Emotional support
Intellectual community
Role models
Teaching perspective
Safe space
Accountability for goals
Source: (“Don’t Talk About Mentoring”)

7. Networking Model
A broad range of on- and off-campus contacts make up a healthy and productive networking network.
Privileges the new faculty member’s needs, not mentor’s experience. (Similar to student-centered teaching.)
Encourages the faculty member to ask “what do I need and where is the best place to get it?”
Goal: To shift from dependency and hierarchy to empowerment and support.

8. Mentoring Map

9. Network of Professional Development and Support
Wide range of individuals, on and off campus
In and outside your division and department
Pre-tenure and senior
Formal and informal sources of information and opportunities
The same person may have multiple roles on your network map

10. How to Fill Your Map
Think of people who are already mentoring you, even if you or they don’t realize it.
Remember that mentoring can be informal and occasional.
Johnson Center:
Orientation
New/pre-tenure lunches
Tuesday/Thursday lunches
Writing Group
Accept invitations and attend events, if possible.
Ask a potential mentor to coffee or lunch.
External: Conferences and panels

11. Keep in Mind
Imagine mentoring as a broad, dynamic network instead of a relationship with one person throughout your career.
Keep asking yourself: What do I need and where can I get my needs met?
When you receive advice, always ask: “How exactly did you do that?”
Use your discernment: Some advice isn’t useful; sometimes it is incorrect or even damaging.
Familiarize yourself with the research on teaching, productive academic writing, academic time management, balancing work and family, negotiating, and healthy conflict as needed.
Repeat to yourself: “There is no guru.”
Pay it forward: How can you mentor your colleagues?
Source: “The Limits of Anecdote”

12. Resources
Kerry Ann Rockquemore. “Don’t Talk About Mentoring.” Inside Higher Ed. 3 October 2011.
“The Limits of Anecdotes.” Inside Higher Ed. 2 November 2011.
“A New Model For Mentoring.” Inside Higher Ed. 22 July 2013.
“Sink or Swim.” Inside Higher Ed. 17 October 2011.