Mentoring is understood to involve cooperative, flexible guidance by individuals who are acting in the best interest of new department members. Mentoring is most effective when those involved are committed to making it successful.

New faculty should know that they can expect all other faculty members to be willing to be of assistance when asked, even when mentors are designated.

Not knowing the territory, new faculty members often do not know what questions to ask, and it is the role of mentors along with the chair to help new faculty orient themselves to the department, the School, university and community incrementally and in a navigable fashion over the five-year period before applying for tenure and promotion.

Choosing Mentors

New faculty, in consultation with the chair will be invited to identify two mentors of their choosing, one with closely shared interests and one with alternate perspectives/or in an other program area of the department.

Role of Chair

The Chair will work with new faculty to help them identify senior faculty who could act as mentors during the first month. Periodic consultation, initiated by either party should take place initially at one to two month intervals and later as agreed to with the new member. These consultations are for the purpose of mutual feedback and to make adjustments as requested by the new faculty. Regardless of the roles mentors take on, the chair should always be open to direct consultation. All parties should understand that consultation will be to assist in a cooperative, rather than directive manner.

Role of Mentors

Mentors will carry out key functions, as outlined below. Mentors take on a consulting, non-evaluative role. Their familiarity with current tenure and promotion expectations is critical.

Functions

The key function categories are: counseling, teaching, research, and linkages.

• Consultation
  The new faculty member is encouraged to write up, in consultation with a mentor, their own objectives for research, teaching and service. It is imperative that this consultation include helping the faculty member formulate a plan of implementation by pointing out university resources, key contacts, helping to clarify the roles and functions of various offices, personnel and committees.
• Teaching
  Mentors will assist new faculty in formulating their role in the department's and the school's curriculum. They will also assist new faculty with program development, scheduling, and course design as needed. It is recommended that new faculty sit in on colleagues' classes. Helping new faculty understand the different needs of the particular populations of students we serve (graduate and undergraduate) is critical in order that curricula meet these needs in a valid manner. New faculty are encouraged to have a senior faculty member visit their class as a matter of routine. A mentor could assist in identifying appropriate faculty.
• Research
  Mentors will assist the new faculty member in conceptualizing how their research agenda can be tailored to fit with tenure and promotion criteria. Supportive feedback on manuscripts, funding proposals, and other research plans should be available from any faculty member, with the assistance of the mentors. Periodic consultation to this end is critical and will allow on-going questions to be answered. University and community resources need to be pointed out, such as grant opportunities, statistical consultation, and other services to assist in developing and conducting research plans.

Linkages

Mentors will assist the new faculty member in setting up ways to become involved with other university departments, faculty with coinciding interests, and offices to which we typically refer students. Knowing key contact people in these offices facilitates finding answers to particular problems that arise when teaching, counseling students, or gaining access to information. Formal and informal channels of communication must be clarified. It is recommended that a mentor be part of the initial contact with the formal channel in order to facilitate conversation and information gathering through follow-up questions and noting other resources.

It is recommended that opportunities for regular collegial contact of all department and interdepartmental contact be instituted. These occasions would be for the purpose of idea exchange and discussion of on-going research, research plans, curriculum ideas with dept members through coffee hour/brown bag sessions scheduled at a time when faculty is not occupied with teaching.

Merit

Mentoring is viewed as a valuable departmental service activity and will be recognized as such in annual merit ratings.

Faculty

At any time, all faculty are encouraged to suggest adjustments to this mentoring statement in an effort to better serve the needs of incoming faculty.