Peer Mentoring For Untenured Women Faculty: A Leadership Skills And Community Building Workshop

Peer mentoring is a promising strategy for improving the presence, retention and advancement of women faculty members in engineering. Strategies for maintaining and increasing the representation of women faculty members in engineering departments may also increase the retention of female students pursuing engineering careers. As a first step toward providing peermentoring for untenured women faculty members, an Outward Bound-based Leadership Skills and Community-Building Workshop was held in August 2001. Participants included 14 untenured women faculty in engineering (including two of the organizers/authors), a psychologist (the third organizer/author), and one invited senior woman faculty member in engineering. Based on post-workshop participant reflections, significant positive impact on participants’ informational, psychosocial and instrumental well-being was achieved. All attendees noted that the inclusion of a senior woman engineering faculty member greatly enhanced the value of the workshop. The peer-mentoring network that resulted from the Leadership Skills and Community-Building Workshop is providing affirmative opportunities for exchanging professional advice and support for participants in the short-term. Preliminary evidence suggests that these new skills and perspectives, as well as post-workshop peermentoring, will contribute to longer-term success in academe for the participating women faculty members in engineering.