Purpose

The goals of mentoring are to assist new tenure track faculty members to understand the promotion and tenure criteria and provide guidance as new faculty professionally develop in the areas of teaching, research and service.

Procedures

Year I: In the first semester, multiple contacts are encouraged with diverse faculty (in terms of faculty rank and content expertise).  Written documentation from the Dean of Faculties Office and the School of Education on the tenure and promotion process is provided to new faculty members.  Each new faculty member is encouraged to think about experienced faculty who may serve as a mentor or mentors.

In the second semester, the department chair is responsible for exploring mentoring options with the new faculty member.  Consideration is given to process and content.  Process mentoring involves providing information about the various types of evidence used to demonstrate outstanding teaching, research and service.  Besides communicating the criteria, the role of the process mentor is to periodically check the new faculty member's progress.  Supportive individuals with experience on department/college/university promotion and tenure committees are ideal mentors.  The process mentor should come from the new faculty member's home department.  Content mentoring takes the form of colleague feedback on manuscripts, papers, and funding proposals.  Content mentoring may involve more than one individual and faculty outside the mentee's home department.

Year II: Sample dossiers and candidates' statements are shared with new faculty members.  The requirements of the third year pretenure review are discussed.

Year III: The new faculty member is encouraged to compile a mini dossier during the first semester of the third year.  The mentor provides feedback on the candidate's statement and how the various forms of evidence are sorted into teaching, research and service categories.  The pretenure review dossier is submitted by February 1 of Year III.

Years IV-VI: The mentor assists the new faculty member to respond to issues that may have been raised in the third year pretenure review.

Expectations of Mentor

• pointing out university resources
• clarifying roles of functions of various offices and staff
• helping the new faculty member find individuals with whom to collaborate
• providing advice about how to find research funding, publish articles, etc.
• reading and reacting to articles and proposals before they are sent  
• providing advice about teaching and making sure the new faculty member has adequate support for teaching
• helping the new faculty member make decisions about productive use of time
• assisting the new faculty member to conceptualize a program of inquiry
• encouraging the new faculty member to save and organize the various forms of documentation necessary for a dossier
• ensuring that senior faculty visit and write up observations of the new faculty member's teaching
• assisting new faculty in formulating their role in the program's, department's, and school's curriculum.

Additional comments on Mentoring

An underlying assumption of the mentoring process is that it is a voluntary process.  It is a process designed to assist the new faculty member to successfully negotiate the tenure and promotion process.  Thus, the new faculty member's wishes should be foremost in the selection of potential mentors.  If the new faculty member chooses not to have a mentor that is his or her right.

Frequency and nature of the mentoring process are negotiated between the new faculty member and mentor.  At the time of the annual review the department chair checks with the new faculty member to determine the status of the mentoring relationship.  Adjustments or even a change of mentors is made accordingly.