L Milne's List: Mentoring and Coaching

As educators, we engage in the act of mentoring, at least informally, every day, whether with peers or students. So the question is: Do the benefits of a formal mentoring program outweigh the costs of its development and implementation? Find out how a formal mentoring program can enhance the performance of the college and its people in the League for Innovation's August 2009 Learning Abstracts.

"Mentor. The word conjures up the image of a seasoned corporate sage conversing with a naive, still wet-behind-the-ears young recruit. The conversation would be laced with informal rules, closely guarded secrets, and "I remember back in '67..." stories of daredevil heroics and too-close-to-call tactics.

Mentoring has had an almost heady, academic sound, solely reserved for workers in white collars whose fathers advised, "Get to know old Charlie."

But what is mentoring, really? Simply put, a mentor is someone who helps someone else learn something that he or she would have learned less well, more slowly, or not at all if left alone. Notice the power-free nature of that definition. Mentors are not power figures; they are learning coaches--sensitive and trusted advisors."

From Yale's Women's Faculty Forum, a 2005 overview of new-faculty mentoring programs at:\n* Emory University - Passages Program\n* University of California San Diego - Faculty Mentoring Program\n* Stanford Medical School - Faculty Mentoring Program\n* University of Wisconsin - Women Faculty Mentoring Program\n* University of Oregon - Women Faculty Resource Network\n* University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts\nas well as:\nJunior Faculty Mentoring: Principles and Best Practices\n* CUNY Hunter College 26\nSponsorship Program for Gender Equity Departments

"These faculty mentoring resources are intended to be an aid to both faculty mentors and new faculty in beginning and continuing their mentoring relationship. " They include:
- mentoring objectives
- mentor benefits & roles
- mentee benefits & responsibilities
- phases of mentoring relationships
- the mentoring process
- supportive materials for success
- links to additional resources

“Mutual Mentoring” distinguishes itself from the traditional model by encouraging the development of a broader, more flexible network of support that mirrors the diversity of real-life mentoring in which no single person is required or expected to possess the expertise of many. Within this model, early career faculty build robust networks by engaging multiple “mentoring partners” in non-hierarchical, collaborative, cross-cultural partnerships to address specific areas of knowledge and experience, such as research, teaching, tenure, and work-life balance. These reciprocal partnerships benefit not only the person traditionally known as the “protégé,” but also the person traditionally known as the “mentor,” thus building on the idea that all members of an academic community have something to teach and learn from each other.

"...It is not a lack of understanding of the tenure process that is working against the advancement of minority faculty members, but rather the institutional culture, a key component of which is a true commitment to diversity.

Colleges and universities share common challenges in attracting and retaining assistant professors who are female or members of minority groups, especially in fields where they are underrepresented. Successful diversity campaigns require financial support and leadership. "
...
Ensure equal-opportunity mentoring. "It can be pretty isolating when you're the only one," said one female assistant professor we interviewed, "the only woman, the only junior faculty member, the only African-American, whatever your particular 'only' is. Sometimes you just want someone like you to talk to."
The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 4, 2009
by Anne Gallagher and Cathy A. Trower

"In 1998 we conducted an on-line survey to define what partners felt were the attributes of effective mentoring relationships (see http://coachingandmentoring.com/mentsurvey.htm. A resounding YES came from responses to this open-ended question: Is there a difference between a mentor, coach, and supervisor? These differences are summarized in Table 1..."

""Writing is not simply a way for students to demonstrate what they know," says The National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges. "It is a way to help them understand what they know. At its best, writing is learning."

With that maxim in mind—and some grim statistics about student writing ability in hand—a number of colleges have waded into the assessment waters by measuring outcomes based on this one essential skill. "
- Lumina, August 2010