Mentoring New Faculty

Faculty mentoring, an adaptable and practical strategy for bolstering faculty success, is key to faculty development. Mentoring has been shown to enhance teaching effectiveness, to increase research productivity, and to improve faculty retention, recruitment, productivity and satisfaction.¹

Successful mentoring depends on building supportive relationships between new faculty members and established teacher-scholars poised to guide the advancement of their junior colleagues. A few key principles underpin faculty mentoring relationships at W&L:

1. Mentorship is a collaborative learning process that draws upon the knowledge of a variety of faculty who can provide guidance (senior faculty, near peers, and peers may all function as mentors) to new faculty entering the professoriate or to more senior faculty transitioning to new roles. The relationship is a “reciprocal, supportive, and creative partnership of equals,” requiring active committed engagement on the part of both mentor and mentee.²
2. Mentoring should help junior faculty successfully acquire the key competencies (scholarly independence, educational skills, and preparation for academic advancement), as well as the constructive professional relationships (professional networks) within the institution and beyond needed to develop a productive career.³
3. The traditional, hierarchical, dyadic mentoring relationships may be enriched by an additional network of individuals providing very specific guidance in areas of professional development that may not be addressed within a single dyadic relationship.⁴ Formal assigned mentoring relationships and informal, mentee-initiated relationships may be complementary and support different aspects of career guidance. Mentoring networks are of particular relevance to faculty groups traditionally underrepresented in the professoriate.⁵

The scope of faculty mentoring should include guidance in multiple aspects of career development. These include, but may not be limited to the following:

1. Teaching skills
2. Development of independent scholarship and creative work
3. Development of internal and external professional networks crucial to recognition as an independent scholar
4. Strategies for success and advancement within the institution, school, or department, with attention paid to formal as well as informal measures of success
5. Requirements for academic advancement
6. Overall career planning, including short-, mid-, and long- term goals
7. Management of career challenges of particular relevance to women and underrepresented minority faculty

To a large extent, the most fundamental, longterm mentoring occurs within a new colleague’s primary department or interdisciplinary program. Guided by the Department Faculty Development Document (DFDD), department and IP chairs determine the best structure to help new faculty members transition to W&L and begin robust careers within their disciplines. Approaches vary, but chairs may choose to assign individual mentors, organize group discussions between a new faculty member and junior and senior colleagues, plan class observations, or establish other structures of support.

Given the scope of the guidance that benefits new faculty, it is clear that mentoring beyond the departmental level is also essential and and may take many forms. Moreover, we recognize that there is not a one-size-fits-all program to meet the needs of all new faculty members. Non-tenure track faculty, underrepresented minority faculty, and tenure track colleagues all require unique forms of support and development. Therefore, we aim to provide all new faculty at W&L with consistent extra-departmental mentoring programs that smooth the transition to our community and prepare teacher-scholars for longterm success.

First, new non-tenure track and tenure track faculty are invited to participate in a teacher- scholarcohortfornewfacultymembers. The cohort will be led by the undergraduate associate deans as well as the associate dean for academic affairs in the law school when new law faculty join our community. The cohort will provide optional monthly meetings that focus on different aspects of faculty development. These meetings will include invited speakers, campus leaders, and specific workshops to support faculty who may be preparing for the job market or simply focused on improving pedagogical strategies.

Finally, new tenure track faculty at Washington and Lee will be assigned a mentor from outside of his or her department appointed by the new faculty member’s respective dean for their first year. The Provost and the Deans will lead a mandatory faculty academy session to provide training to all faculty mentors. Core events planned by the Provost throughout the first year of a faculty member’s W&L career will ensure faculty mentors and mentees establish a strong mentoringrelationship.

The frequency of mentoring discussions as well as the level of detail may vary depending on the junior faculty member’s needs (i.e., it may be determined that more frequent meetings would be necessary for faculty arriving directly from graduate school while faculty with significant teaching experience may require less frequent meetings), as well as the level of independence of the junior faculty.

The mentoring relationship must include:

1. An opening discussion of teaching (preferably before classes start and focused on syllabus development), research, and service goals.
2. An end of year meeting to reassess goals and recommend any “course corrections."
3. At least two additional informal meetings on topics ranging from work-life balance to nurturing an on-campus network.

The mentoring relationship can include:

1. A classroom observation of the mentor teaching followed by a discussion of the class.
2. A classroom observation of the mentee followed by a discussion of the class.
3. A discussion on advising at the end of the first year as the second year is when faculty take on advising duties.

The Associate Provost will reach out to mentors and mentees once at the end of each semester soliciting a brief reflection. Moreover, the Mentee’s Dean will provide up to $200 to each mentor to reimburse meetings over coffee, lunch, or dinner throughout the year.