Mentoring New Faculty: A Student Exercise Designed To Enhance Student Faculty Relationships

An essential aspect of mentoring goes beyond just addressing the mental or scholarship dimension of a new faculty member. It involves providing guidance and suggestions for developing relationships within the university community. Specifically, helping new faculty achieve social/emotional acceptance by the students is an important aspect of mentoring. The current sensitivity to the diversity issue mandates that universities find new and effective ways to truly help new faculty members become assimilated into its community. Successfully doing so provides an atmosphere of trust and respect for new faculty members. In turn this facilitates their intellectual growth while providing an environment that encourages development as a competent researcher and excellent teacher. Mentoring on relationship development permits individuals of different race, color, creed, gender and ethnic background to freely express themselves. As a result, others can acquire a deeper appreciation and understanding of the diversity this individual brings to the university and how this diversity can enrich the academic community. This paper discusses a method senior faculty have suggested to new faculty to develop studentfaculty relationships. The method involves a student exercise developed and successfully implemented for new faculty members to gain preliminary acceptance by students in their classes. Students participate in an exercise called "Who Is This Professor?” Small student groups prepare several questions they would like to ask of the professor. The questions usually cover different areas to include the academic, professional, personal, and social background of the new faculty member. Each group then asks one of its questions and the faculty member extemporaneously answers it. After several questions students begin to develop appreciation for the professor as a unique human being who has more to offer than just excellent instruction on the course content. Candid and sincere responses by the professor begin the critical process of developing mutual trust, and respect so essent ial for success in the teaching component of the professor's academic career.