Information for New Faculty
Introduction
This brochure is designed to accompany the initial offer of appointment to women who are joining the engineering faculties at colleges and universities in the ECSEL
coalition. It strongly recommends that each new female faculty member be assigned a mentor, includes a description of the mentor's role for the mentor and department head, and guides the new faculty member in selection of a mentor.
Itis based on one developed by the Women Faculty Network (WFN) at MIT during the 1991-92 academic year. Major contributions to that brochure were made by: Mary Boyce, Peggy Cebe, Lorna Gibson, Simone Hochgreb, Vera Kistiakowsky, Heather Lechtman, Ruth Perry, Karen Polenske, Mary Rowe, Lynn Stein, Lisa Steiner, Judith Thomson, Lena Valavani, and Caroline Whitbeck. Each new female faculty member at MIT is now assigned a mentor, and that assignment is described in the MIT brochure. The present brochure was revised by Heidi W. Shih (MIT '95) and Dr. Caroline Whitbeck in light of comments by representatives of each of the ECSEL campuses.
The Mentor Profile
This profile outlines the mentor's role for both the mentor and the department head and acts as a guide for the new faculty member in selecting a mentor. The most important tasks of a good mentor
are to help the mentoree achieve excellence, and to be an active, assertive advocate or sponsor for the junior faculty member in relation to the department, the dean, and colleagues within and outside of the university.
Qualities of a Good Mentor
Examples of good mentoring include the following:
- Advocacy:
- The mentor should be willing to argue in support of the junior faculty member for space, funds, and students.
- Accessibility:
- The mentor must make time to be available to the mentoree. The mentor might keep in contact by dropping in at the mentoree's office, calling, sending e-mail, or inviting the mentoree to lunch. The mentor should make time to ask questions, to read proposals and papers, and to give periodic reviews of progress.
- Networking:
- The mentor should have enough experience and contacts to be able to help establish a professional network for the mentoree.
- Independence:
- The mentor must not be in competition with the mentoree; the mentoree's intellectual independence from the mentor must be carefully preserved.
Tasks for the Mentor-Long-term goals. Every mentor should ask:
What should the professional profile of the mentoree be? Where should the mentoree be in her career during the first three years?
- To facilitate this, explain the department's typical or general criteria for promotion and tenure; describe any flexibility that exists in the promotion/tenure schedule. The mentor should be aware that there is no one rigid set of requirements for junior faculty, but that there are acceptable ranges of performance in various categories (e.g., scholarship, publications, supervision of graduate students, presentations at conferences, funding, changing of field, teaching, administrative duties, consulting, collaborations with colleagues).
- Inform other senior faculty of the mentoree's progress.
- Help the mentoree develop many options for the future; from the beginning, the mentor and mentoree should plan for multiple job opportunities.
Short-term goals. Every mentor should:
- Help sort out priorities with examples of how to budget time, prepare publications, teaching, participating in committees, setting up a lab for experimental work.
- Give advice on how to deal with difficulties.
- Lab space, administrative support, access to student networking, introductions to colleagues, identification of other possible mentors for the mentoree.
- Help obtain research support, such as contacts and access to agencies.
- Compliment the mentoree's achievements and inform colleagues of the mentoree's achievements.
- Teach the mentoree how to say "No" to certain demands on her time.
Changing Mentors
A mentoree should consider changing mentors:
- if the mentor is clearly and consistently uninterested in her progress,
- if the mentor consistently depresses the mentoree by undervaluing herabilities,
- if the mentor displays any other signs of undermining the relationship (e.g., racial, sexual, ethnic, or other prejudice),
- or if there is simply an incompatibility.
A mentoree should consider adding a mentor if the current mentor consistently can neither answer questions nor offer advice.