Formal Faculty Mentoring in Higher Education: A Synthesis of Promising Practices 351Tip 5: Create Three-Way Mentorships
Because rising faculty and academic newcomers benefit from more than one mentoring
relationship, the goal is for them to receive assistance from multiple, coexisting sources
(Higgins, 2000) specifically configured as a dynamic mentoring triad (Mullen & Kennedy,
2007). Triangulated relationships that bring together new faculty with faculty mentors from
outside as well as inside their departments increase the potential for effective mentoring.
Tenure-earning faculty members in some university mentoring experiments have been known
to function as the center of a mentoring triad, assigned to a mentor in the department and the
college. It appears that academic protégés benefit more from multiple, rather than single,
relationships (e.g., Head, Reiman, & Thies-Sprinthall, 1992). Department chairs can be asked
to identify department mentors, and the mentoring coordinator can make the college matches,
with input from such well-positioned individuals as associate deans for academic affairs.
Tip 6: Structure Contextual Relevance in Mentoring
College and department mentoring arrangements function somewhat differently.
Department mentors are likely to have close contact with new faculty members, serving as an
invaluable resource and sounding board. The college mentor is a “go-to” person for
discussing any concerns in confidence: An outsider to the mentee’s department and possibly
discipline, this college-level mentor can offer fresh perspectives on cultural factors and other
collegewide issues relevant to newcomers. Both mentors are seasoned scholars who can
provide professional guidance on the faculty member’s research and teaching while
simultaneously attending to the “socialization” needs of a new professor (Mullen, et al., 2008;
Mullen & Kennedy, 2007).
Tip 7: Seek Understanding of Structural Barriers
Physical distance and time can become significant barriers to successful mentoring for
some faculty pairs. Distance in some contexts has less to do with proximity within units as
opposed to campus location for those college campuses nested within a multi-institutional
organization. New professors who are situated at a regional campus in a system dependent on
a main campus are inevitably challenged, as are their mentors. As one solution, newly hired
regional faculty may agree to three mentors, with at least one from their own site and another
from the main campus, although “death by mentoring,” so to speak, must be closely
monitored and avoided (Mullen, et al., 2008).
Tip 8: Assess Program Efficacy
Faculty mentor programs need to be assessed and recommendations for changes not only
solicited but also entertained (Chan, 2008; Dubin & Recht, 2008). Assessments can be carried
out through surveys distributed at the beginning and end of each annual cycle. Reliability can
then be achieved through several means: overlap with studies in faculty mentoring (e.g.,
Morin & Ashton, 2004), feedback from a survey-design specialist on the original instrument,
and modifications to the survey instrument based on participant input. Besides providing
mentoring programs with a means for continuous improvement, this assessment structure
enables mentees and mentors alike to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the program
and the leadership team to address concerns. An end-of-year evaluation is too late to discover