Snowbird Mentoring Panel Nurturing Young Faculty Careers

Errol Lloyd

University of Delaware

What is the goal of mentoring?

  • Long term career success
  • Success in the tenure process
  • What is mentoring?

  • Essential
  • Nice
  • ** All faculty **
  • An individual faculty member
  • The Chair
  • Outside faculty: their PhD advisor
  • When does mentoring begin?

  • At the interview
  • In their first week
  • What is the role of the mentor?

    Junior faculty need to be comfortable with this person so as to ask questions, float crazy idea s, have a sounding board for complaints,etc.

    What is the role of the chair?

  • Be positive!
  • Encourage mentoring relationships via the junior and senior faculty, including joint proposal work
  • Monitor and assist with proposals (read and comment) as appropriate
  • Teaching evaluations - visit their classroom
  • Limit their service activities (especially true for women and minorities)
  • Provide funding for conferences (even if they do not have a paper)
  • Provide teaching assignments that allow them to meet first and second year grad students
  • Annual evaluation - success in all areas, but with a clear emphasis on research
  • Pitfalls

  • Failure of the mentor to follow through
  • Junior faculty feel taken advantage of in joint activities
  • Junior faculty works exclusively with their mentor: joint papers, proposals, students