Meeting The Mentoring Needs Of New Faculty: An Interdisciplinary Experience

Every new job presents its challenges, especially when an employee has the feeling of being isolated. This paper will describe how a campus-wide faculty mentoring and networking initiative evolved from a one-day new faculty orientation into a university-supported new faculty cohort program utilizing web resources, brown-bag lunch series, and faculty development workshops. This cohort is not limited to engineering, but is an interdisciplinary group spanning several colleges within the university. The cohort started with faculty who met at the orientation and scheduled monthly informal gatherings at which they discussed general first-year experience and acclimation issues. The group then expanded to include mentors, including the Faculty Senate President and colleagues of the initial members. The addition of the Faculty Senate President as a mentor to the new faculty cohort enabled visibility of these new faculty issues to the faculty at large as well as to the administration. The group now serves as an advisory group for the Faculty Development Senate Subcommittee. The concept of the evolution from an informal group gathering periodically to discuss new faculty issues to a university recognized association of new faculty and mentors is one of developing a centralized resource enabling the smooth transition of new faculty through self-help and the guidance and knowledge of seasoned faculty. Background and Institutional Expectations This effort began very casually, almost accidentally, when a group of newly hired faculty members met at the New Faculty Orientation provided by the university. [University Name] is a midsized regional university serving a largely rural community in [location]. The university is growing and has recently added its first doctorate degree, an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, as well as undergraduate degrees in engineering. As the university expands, so do the expectations placed on the faculty. [University Name] has traditionally been a teaching institution, but it is evolving into a teaching and research institution. Thus, the tenure and promotion standards of the university are requiring more emphasis in the area of research. Therefore, the expectations on the new faculty today are different from new faculty of 10 years ago. Another issue facing new faculty is the simple logistics of university operations and teaching/research efforts. Across the university, the level of administratively directed mentoring of new faculty varies greatly. For example, in the College of Education, mentors are formally assigned to new faculty members to help with day-to-day operational issues, whereas in other departments the faculty are simply handed the keys to their offices. Standard operational issues such as how to write a syllabus, how to submit grades, where to find research opportunities, how to incorporate technology into the classroom, where to find office supplies, are often not addressed by departmental administration. The establishment of an informal mentoring and networking group helps fill the gaps that exist for many new faculty, and the interdisciplinary nature of the group provides a broader view of university operations and expectations. P ge 13886.2 Year 1: New Faculty Orientation and Regular, Informal Meetings Every fall [University Name] provides a New Faculty Orientation all-day workshop covering employment information (parking and campus security, network computer use, employee benefits overview) and an introduction to key Academic Affairs personnel and expectations. During this workshop in the fall of 2006 several of these new faculty interacted, and since they were the only ones they knew on campus these new faculty maintained contact over the next month. The members of the group quickly realized that the New Faculty Orientation, while covering the basics, left many gaps about their understanding of their new positions. Thus, the group decided to start having regular lunch meetings about every two weeks. Approximately two months into the semester, several of the new faculty members participated in a system-wide junior faculty research workshop. The university system held its second annual junior faculty research workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to increase the interaction of junior faculty with peers system-wide and develop partnerships among common research and educational interests. The system research workshop also discussed strategies, specific to junior faculty, for research funding and success. At this event, the new faculty had the opportunity to meet some junior faculty (non-tenured, but at [University Name] for more than a year) from other disciplines at [University Name] and saw them as an obvious resource in their endeavor to acclimate to life at [University Name]. The new faculty group then invited these junior faculty to join their cohort. With the addition of junior faculty, the new faculty found instant mentors. The junior faculty helped provide solutions and information that the new faculty might have had difficulty finding on their own. While all of these junior faculty served as passive mentors to new faculty in general; most of the junior faculty developed active mentoring roles within the group and many of them extending outside their disciplines to do so. During the first year (2006-07), with eight consistent members from the departments of engineering, education, social work, psychology, nursing and English, the group continued to hold regular informal meetings every two weeks. The cohort was a casual group with no formal structure. The frequent meetings allowed the members to network with people from various departments and helped them to build a camaraderie composed of those facing challenges of coping in their new environment. With one of the junior faculty members being the President of the Faculty Senate, issues discussed in these informal meetings were brought to the Faculty Senate. Over the summer, the cohort decided to organize the structure of the group and established officers. Year 2: Ongoing Cohort and Growth For year two (2007-08), the cohort added three new members: one from agriculture, one from nursing, and one from education. The cohort officers attended the university-sponsored all-day New Faculty Orientation in order to let the new faculty know about the cohort. In spite of the officers attending the New Faculty Orientation, the primary mechanism for recruiting new members was by association with existing members.