Advice for Chairs, Associate Deans, and Senior Faculty
Here are some suggestions on mentoring that were shared in the chat discussion during this workshop:
Compassion and understanding
Host department listening sessions and/or regular meetings with only early career faculty in attendance.
Create opportunities for faculty to socialize outside of regular department meetings.
Acknowledge concern about faculty’s wellbeing and ask for specific ways that you can support them.
Be open to sharing your own struggles and solutions with faculty.
Professional growth and networking
Regularly (at least twice per year) meet with early career faculty 1:1.
Ask early career faculty if there are specific people they’d like to meet that you can connect them with.
Work to identify what the faculty member would like to gain via informal mentorship and help them establish a network of multiple people and resources that fit those needs.
Offer financial assistance to form ties with faculty from other institutions.
Programmatic options
Create faculty development programs to improve the experience of both mentees and mentors.
Utilize breakout sessions for speed-mentoring opportunities in a virtual realm.
Connect all faculty with NCFDD resources.
Monitor equity
Recognize that BIPOC faculty are often approached by a large number of students. Have conversations with faculty (at all ranks) about managing that workload.
Limit committee assignments for non-tenured faculty, but also consult with them to see what specific committees would benefit them.
Create categories that might be different than the institution’s for reporting on CV and salary review documents, i.e., not just “committee work” but other categories of service, especially “soft” service.
Evaluation and accountability
Conduct quick polls at least biannually to review the mentee/mentor experience in your unit; coordinate with other units for comparable data.
Establish clear expectations about service for all faculty, both at the individual and department levels.
Circulate all committee, advising (undergrad/grad), and other service assignments at the start of each academic year for transparency and equity.
Do one thing: For deans, chairs/heads and senior faculty
Establish mutual mentoring or chart a mentoring roadmap:
Make faculty workloads more transparent and equitable: