Clark has contracted with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) to revisit and revamp our faculty mentorship program. These exciting new opportunities seek to provide more meaningful and consistently effective mentorship to faculty at all career stages across the campus.
Being a new faculty member is both exciting and stressful.
Research indicates that new faculty arrive on campuses with enthusiasm and optimism about opportunities for growth in their careers. Over time, however, work-related stress often increases — and work-related satisfaction often decreases. New faculty satisfaction and success have been shown to be enhanced by positive and supportive social and intellectual relationships with colleagues, support for both research and teaching, and clear and constructive feedback on their work.
To help provide new faculty with such support, Clark is pleased to offer a mentoring program for new faculty. All first-year tenure-track faculty will be assigned mentors prior to their arrival at Clark, unless they opt out of the program, and other new faculty may request a mentor. Participation is completely voluntary for both mentors and mentees.
Mentors are:
- tenured faculty
- successful in both teaching and research
- in a discipline that is related to, but not the same, as the mentee’s
- have demonstrated the interest, personality, and skills to be a good mentor
Mentors may assist with issues of classroom teaching, developing a program of scholarship, time management, priority setting, and/or other areas as needed. The formal mentoring relationship is anticipated to last for the first year of the new faculty member’s appointment and to continue, informally, in subsequent years. It may be terminated at the request of either member of the team.
Mentors and mentees will be invited to write a statement, a paragraph to a page in length, which sets out the objective(s) of the mentoring relationship — tailored to the needs of the mentee — and how they plan to achieve them. Possible strategies could include, but are not limited to:
- regular meetings on selected topics
- classroom visits
- review of materials written by the mentee (teaching- or research-related)
- regular, informal conversations
It is recommended that each mentor-mentee team meet in person approximately three times per semester.
For further information, please contact:
Esther Jones
Associate Provost and Dean of the Faculty
Phone: 508-793-7377
esjones@clarku.edu
