348 HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERSHIP PRACTICES
leadership departments, faculty members who have held significant decision-making roles can
be capitalized upon as a resource in the development of formal mentoring programs.
As a leadership professor, I initiated a collegewide, formal mentoring opportunity for 1st-
and 2nd-year junior faculty members at my former institution, where none previously existed.
I prepared a proposal arguing the need for such a program in education, outlining its possible
structure and components and citing research on existing programs that seemed to fit our
context. The program then rapidly formed through two forces: (1) joint decision-making
between the faculty leader and the administrative leaders and (2) proactive consultation of
promising practices involving faculty-to-faculty mentoring in higher education (for a detailed
description of the NFMP, see Mullen, et al., 2008).
It may be naïve to think that any major formal mentoring initiative can be undertaken
without the support of college leaders or, conversely, that administrators can proceed without
the grassroots effort of faculty, preferably those with strong leadership skills and current
mentoring knowledge. In the case of the NFMP, it encapsulated two-way decision-making
(Fullan, 1999) and faculty leadership (Luna & Cullen, 1995). Hence, the implementation of
this program was made possible by two interdependent events: the self-initiative of a tenured
faculty member and the support of a dean. Such two-way leadership can serve not only to
support new initiatives but also to sustain them. Hence, this faculty-led (bottom-up) approach
relative to such time-consuming service commitments as programmatic planning, structure,
and assessment was enabled through the sponsorship and support of administrative leaders.
Formal Mentoring
Academic relationships that are formal, planned, structured, and potentially long-term are
intrinsic to formal mentoring. Eby, Rhodes, and Allen (2007) describe relationship initiation
and relationship structure as the originating sources of formal mentoring. In the first case,
faculty members are assigned to the relationship by a third party, such as a program
coordinator, an academic advisor, or department chair (Campbell, 2007). The pairs involved
do not select one another. In the second case, relationship structure influences the formality of
the mentoring relationship, with such elements as program structures, objectives, and
guidelines communicated prior to the development of relationships and through such
materials as brochures and mission statements (Eby, et al., 2007). Metaphorically speaking,
formal mentoring is an arranged marriage, which necessitates an orientation for the newly
committed to work through their awkwardness (Allen & Eby, 2007).
The formalized academic mentoring relationship revolves around an experienced
professor (mentor) taking an active role in supporting and developing the career of a neophyte
professional, also known as the mentee or learner (e.g., Luna & Cullen, 1995; Mullen, 2005).
Effective mentors guide mentees using their institutional knowledge of the norms, values, and
procedures of the institution and from professional experience. Access to the tacit knowledge
of productive scholars—such as the ability to collaborate and establish social supports, and to
develop scholarly agendas that connect research and practice—can help prepare new and
future researchers (Mullen, 2008; Tschannen-Moran & Nestor-Baker, 2004). The goal is for
beginning faculty (or students) to become quickly socialized into academe from seasoned
colleagues who serve as role models and advisors.
New faculty members develop successful careers more rapidly in academic environments
when expectations for successful performance are explicit and intellectual interests and career
development are supported (Tierney, 1999). In contrast, academe is often characterized as an
environment in which standards defining successful performance are unwritten or vague (e.g.,