346
HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERSHIP PRACTICES
Formal Faculty Mentoring in Higher Education:
A Synthesis of Promising Practices
Carol A. MullenThe focus of this paper is current research and practice in the area of formal mentoring in
higher education. College leaders need access to knowledge of and information about formal
mentoring programs that support the development and success of faculty members in
education leadership and other academic disciplines. Coverage is needed of relevant ideas and
tips on developing, implementing, and assessing formalized mentoring initiatives (Allen &
Eby, 2007) that stretch beyond the results of single case studies and programmatic
assessments. Because many institutional leaders are searching for a “leg up” with respect to
proven mentoring programs that could benefit their own contexts (Mullen, 2008), this paper
provides a synthesis of promising practices and documented findings. This synthesis
contributes to mentoring and leadership theory while assisting developers in their efforts to
design effective mentoring programs that benefit education leadership and administration
faculty in particular. Readers can extrapolate to student populations with respect to formal
mentoring programs.
THE LIFE-WORLD OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP FACULTY
Thanks for establishing the mentoring program. I appreciate having a network to fall
back on if questions/problems develop. A friend of mine, a new faculty member, is
experiencing a rough transition into academe, and I feel it is because she does not
have the support of a mentoring structure. (1st-year assistant professor, New Faculty
Mentoring Program [NFMP] participant, November 2006)The above words belong to an education leadership professor who was in transition from
the school to the university culture. While such documented testimonial statements from this
population are few, they are worthy of contemplative analysis and impress upon us that
transition to the professoriate for new faculty members is highly stressful (Selby & Calhoun,
1998), a reality that is compounded without the support of effective faculty mentors and
mentoring scaffolds.
Why might this transition pose particular difficulty? For one thing, these adults are, unlike
most other freshly minted doctors and midlife careerists in that they have left one career in
education for another. While few doctoral students in education leadership programs move
directly from degree completion into higher education, a far greater number eventually arrive
there after having assumed leadership positions at the school or district level (Creighton,
Parks, & Creighton, 2008). They are suddenly required as older members of the professoriate
to engage in scholarly pursuit that is, at least initially, self-centered and vastly different from
Carol A. Mullen, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro