Management and Organization Department Faculty Mentoring Program

Overview

Revised April 2023

The M&O Department Faculty Mentoring Program provides assistant tenure-track professors (mentees) in the M&O Department access to formally assigned tenured full professors (mentors) who help to facilitate the development of mentees’ professional skills and attitudes for personal, institutional, and career success.

Assistant professors are eligible to be mentees in the M&O Department Faculty Mentoring Program from when they first join the department through their fourth-year formal review. Full professors serve as mentors in the program on a purely volunteer basis. 

In no way is the mentor program intended to be supervisory or evaluative.  This is important for both senior faculty mentors and mentees alike to bear in mind given the M&O Department’s strong tradition of faculty governance and collective decision-making and evaluations, including annual performance appraisals.

Mentee/Mentor pairings will be formally assigned each year by the M&O Department chair, as per the process further described below, with the aim of facilitating the opportunity for each assistant professor to learn from, and develop relationships with, multiple senior faculty over their first four years in the M&O Department. These annual formal assignments should not preclude mentees (mentors) from maintaining their relationship(s) with prior mentors (mentees) nor are they intended to preclude informal organic mentor/mentee relationships.

Mentoring is recognized as an aspect of departmental service for the senior faculty that participate in the program and should be included as such for annual review purposes.

Assignment of Mentors: The Department Chair will facilitate the assignment of mentor-mentee relationships. Each year, eligible assistant professors will provide the names of three desired senior faculty mentors to the Department Chair. The Department Chair will contact senior faculty mentors to assess their capacity and interest in serving as a mentor in that year. Mentee/Mentor formal assignments will be determined by the Department Chair based upon this input. Every attempt will be made to assign mentor-mentee relationships that meet the needs and preferences of both mentee and mentor. Mentors can be formally assigned to more than one mentee in a given year, if they are so willing.

The Department Chair will not serve as a formally assigned mentor; because the role of the Department Chair involves its own decision-making separate from the faculty in a variety of human resource decisions (e.g., P&T decisions, remuneration and space allocation), assigning the Department Chair as a formal mentor sets up the potential for real or perceived conflicts of interest and/or equity issues. The Department Chair can nevertheless still serve informally as an invaluable source of guidance and advice to junior faculty. In so doing, this should be done with the understanding that their advice may carry more impact, for better or worse, on junior faculty than that of any other faculty member.

Expectations/Best Practices[1]

The mentor-mentee relationship should be collegial, informative, flexible, and mutually agreed upon at the outset of the process. The mentor should be available to coach, guide, and champion the mentee. Effective mentoring involves regular interaction between the mentor and mentee; the mentor and mentee should talk, check-in, or meet as often as necessary to meet the needs of both parties.  

At the start of the relationship, both the mentor and mentee should have their own initial thoughts about what they are comfortable with in the mentoring relationship, including how they see their own roles (as mentor, as mentee). Some initial questions to consider include: Do you prefer a formal relationship that remains 100% ‘professional’? Or would you like to get to know your mentor/mentee better, including his or her personal interests? What kinds of topics will you talk about? How often and under what circumstances will meetings take place? Where are you comfortable meeting—only on campus? At a café? At your own house? For mentors: what are your expectations of your mentee? For mentees: what are your expectations of your mentor? These are important things to consider up from so that you can set expectations of the relationship from the outset and ensure that you are comfortable with the parameters of the mentor/mentee relationship. These issues then are best discussed at your initial meeting(s), and open for negotiation or change as you develop your relationship. See the “Planning for and Defining a Mentoring Relationship” which can be used as a tool to start your relationship off on the right foot.

Mentor Best Practices

Mentoring tasks can include (but are not limited to): discussion of professional goals, scientific leadership, teaching advice, balancing priorities and expectations in the academic environment, techniques for effective time management, ways of addressing work-life balance issues, understanding governance within the department and university, managing professional relationships with peers, and management skills for guiding doctoral students. For an excellent source of further suggestions/resources for mentors, see: University of Albany, Resources for Mentors

Mentor Best Practices can include (but are not limited to):

  • Be proactive: seek out the mentee and build a rapport with them.
  • Be understanding: some mentees may not feel comfortable asking certain questions/seeking guidance. Be prepared to solicit more information.
  • Be available: schedule opportunities to meet, communicate and collaborate.
  • Listen: be a sounding board; empathize; zero in on specific interests and concerns.
  • Facilitate: tap into your experience; help locate a resource or solution; and, help the mentee solve his or her own problem, rather than giving overly giving direction
  • Be developmental: focus on the mentoring partner’s development; resist the urge to produce a clone.
  • Be genuine: Develop mutual trust and respect; value the mentee partner as a person; maintain confidentiality
  • In practice, the Mentor’s role will vary depending upon the unique needs and concerns of the new faculty member and could include any of the following:
    • Sounding Board…listen to and supporting creative ideas and suggestions.
    • Resource…lead the new faculty member to information or the person with the answer.
    • Advisor…offer your opinion or advice on a real or hypothetical problem; aid in addressing work/life balance issues, professional choices, techniques for effective time management, doctoral student advising.
    • Guide…help navigate the maze of buildings, offices, and resources.
    • Interpreter…decipher policies, departmental and college norms, campus acronyms and “codes”.
    • Reviewer…provide feedback on a papers or instructional materials.
    • Role Model…share your teaching and research practices, tips and techniques.
    • Advocate…facilitate the new faculty’s social and professional network, identify professional opportunities for advancement.

Mentee Best Practices

For an excellent source of further suggestions/resources for mentees, see: University of Albany, Resources for Mentees

Mentee Best Practices can include (but are not limited to):

  • Be proactive: think about your goals, your values, and what you are passionate about.
  • Share: share your plans and goals with your mentor and ask how doable they seem.
  • Engage: ask the mentor questions, share comments, voice concerns, and identify issues
  • Seek advice: ask your mentor about what you should be doing to enhance your professional growth and excellence in research, teaching, and service
  • Take personal responsibility: for your academic career; be an active agent and judge of the appropriate course of action for your personal, professional, and career advancement

For additional suggestions and resources for successful mentoring/menteeing, see:

[1] The following is largely adopted from the faculty mentoring programs in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Science (see https://www.ems.psu.edu/resources-faculty-and-staff/faculty-mentoring-best-practices) and at the University of Albany (see https://www.albany.edu/academics/mentoring.best.practices.chapter1.shtml)