Faculty Mentoring

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to provide guidelines to assist in the mentoring process for junior faculty members. The mentoring program is part of the University’s overall faculty development program. This program is mandatory for newly hired faculty at the rank of instructor or assistant professor who have less than three (3) years of experience in academia.

The Dean of each College and Department Chairs should provide the environment and resources for effective mentoring to occur. This includes time allocations that allow for proper faculty development and start up resources for research. Additional time and resources in the form of supplemental training may also be required.

The mentor assigned to the junior faculty member must be higher ranked than the mentee and have an interest and desire to mentor. Mentors must be willing to make a time commitment to the mentee. Serving as a mentor is highly encouraged. The mentee must be willing to spend the necessary time to develop as a faculty member.

The mentoring program shall strive to meet the following goals:

1. To provide an effective program that will assist junior faculty with learning their academic responsibilities.
2. To provide an effective program that will assist faculty with gaining additional expertise in a specific area.
3. To provide the necessary understanding of the academic process for promotion.
4. To provide the mentee with regular feedback regarding his/her professional development.
5. To assist the mentee with career development.
6. To assist the mentee with balancing his/her academic responsibilities.
7. To assist the mentee in becoming an effective educator, including utilizing team-based learning and other methodologies.

Mentors shall have the following responsibilities:

1. Serve as a mentor for one academic year.
2. Obtain a copy of the mentee’s curriculum vitae and decide with the mentee what the goals of the mentorship relationship will be.
3. Meet with the mentee at regularly scheduled intervals and provide feedback regarding the mentee’s progress.
4. Develop a written plan of development for the mentee with measurable and obtainable endpoints. This should be done in consultation with the mentee’s Department Chair and the mentee.
5. Depending on the area of mentoring (teaching, research or service), activities of the mentor may include:
   1. Assist the mentee with preparation of TBL materials including course learning outcomes, guided learning materials, assessment tools, and test questions.
   2. Invite the mentee to their clinical site to observe student-faculty interactions.
   3. Discuss evaluation of student performance.
   4. Assist the mentee with identifying grant sources for research, review ideas for research, review proposals, review the written results of research, discuss and assist with poster/platform presentation of research, and assist with review for publication of research.
   5. Discuss and assist the mentee with understanding their service responsibilities to the University, College, Department, and the profession.

The effectiveness of the mentoring program may be evaluated by the Department Chair as evidenced by the mentees’ accomplishment of academic goals in accordance with procedures of appropriate college.