Provost’s Department Chairs Leadership

Program

Mentoring for Success:

The Role of the Department Chair

Becky L. Yust, Professor and Head

Department of Design, Housing, and
Apparel [DHA]
August 20, 2009
Topics to be covered:

§ Definitions of mentoring
§ Research on mentoring:
– Research-productive departments (Carol Bland et al.)
– Mentoring of junior faculty at the UM (President’s
Emerging Leadership program project, Douah et
al.)
– Additional research (Girves et al.; Johnson et al.)
§ Mentoring in Design, Housing, and Apparel:
– Why we mentor
– Why we changed our mentor process and how we do
in now
– Impacts of mentoring
Origination of mentoring

§ In Homer’s The Odyssey, when Odysseus

goes off to the Trojan War, he asks
Mentor to serve as the tutor for his son,
Telemachus (as described in Bland et al., p. 64).
§ In 1699, François Fénelon used the term in
the book, Les Aventures de Telemaque.
The lead character is Mentor (Roberts as cited
in Wikipedia)
Mentoring typically includes two
broad functions (Kram, 1985; Maack & Passet, 1993)
:
§ Career functions (coaching, protection, visibility, and
resources)
§ Psychosocial functions (role modeling, acceptance,
counseling, and friendship)
§
§ Our mentor committees serve the career function, and
within that, primarily coaching.
– Coaching involves suggesting strategies for accomplishing
work objectives, receiving recognition, and for achieving
career aspirations.
– The other career functions of protection, visibility, and
resources may be served by a mentor committee but
are not assumed to do so.
§ Psychosocial functions may be served by the mentor
committee, but members are not obligated to serve in
these aspects.
Study of highly research-
productive UM departments (Bland et
al.)

§ 37 departments in the study

§ Mentoring models varied, e.g.,
– Every faculty member establishes their own
academic development plan receiving feedback
from assigned mentor and P&T committee
– Two senior faculty mentors assigned by department
chair, one within the area of expertise and one not
– After meeting with each faculty member individually,
new faculty member selects mentors in
consultation with department chair
§ 9 departments were rated in the top 5% in their
fields and they all had formal mentoring
programs
Best practices based on PEL
review of literature and research
at UM (Douah et al.)
§ Structured mentoring efforts are most effective.
§ Departments should customize mentoring
programs to be best suited for departmental
culture and field.
§ Inter-disciplinary faculty mentoring should be
explored.
§ Work/life issues should be addressed, but not
necessarily within the context of a
departmental faculty mentoring program.
§ Department chairs should check-in with the
mentoring that probationary faculty receive.
§
§
PEL survey of UM department
heads
§ Most common areas in which mentors provided
guidance were with:
– the tenure process
– publications
– learning departmental and institutional norms
§ Slightly lower numbers of departments reported
that mentors assisted with:
– grant writing and review
– preparation of the tenure dossier
§ The least common area of mentoring was
regarding work/life balance.
PEL interviews with
department heads
One department head mentioned a


negative perspective
 “. . . mentoring can be affected by
departmental politics. For example, the
mentoring relationship may serve to
enhance existing conflicts or strife among
faculty by creating cliques, loyalties or
alliances within the department.”
PEL recommendations for UM
departments to enhance
mentoring of junior faculty:
§ Department head training should include
an overview of strategies and best
practices for faculty mentoring.
§ Departments should explicitly define what
role mentoring plays in the tenure
process.
Recommendations from
research
(Girves et al.)
§ Systematic or structured mentoring works
much better than spontaneous or natural
mentoring.
§ Structured programs are more likely to
involve people who are normally left out
of the mentoring process.
Importance of formal program (Girves
et al.)

“. . . since university cultures value



competitiveness, independence, and

autonomy, junior faculty may be reluctant
to participate in a mentoring program
fearing that it would be harmful to their
careers if they admitted that they needed
‘extra help.’” (p. 472)
Perspective of a mentee (Johnson et
al.)

“I think that higher education, more than



other professions, has a lot of hidden

rules; many of the cultural things within
the institution and the profession are
never written down, if you are lucky, you
will find a mentor to show you the way.”
(p.35)
Why DHA has formal
mentoring
§ 5 disciplines in the department, but only one 7.12
statement
§ Department Head should not be the only conveyer
of information
§ Committee members educate one another and the
mentee
§ Enhances the sense of community of the
department
§ Creates a climate of working for the success of new
faculty members
§ Potential connections/collaboration for research,
publishing, and teaching
§ Important in recruitment of new faculty
Previous DHA mentoring
system
§ New faculty member and department head
would discuss potential members
§ Department head made the ask
§ Members were to serve for entire
probationary period
§ Chair of committee created draft
evaluative summary statement and
presented to faculty for probationary
review
Issues that developed over
time (ex. 1)
§ Some faculty refused to continue on a
committee when mentee was not
following their recommendations.
– Mentors misinterpreted their roles as
directive instead of advisory
– Created awkward relationships among new
and senior faculty
– Faculty members were not asked to serve
on new committees because of risk of
future resignation from the committee
Issues (ex. 2)

§ Not all faculty were effective mentors and, over

time, mentoring responsibilities were not
equally shared in the department. For
example, some faculty mentors:
– would not familiarize themselves with the mentee’s
work before meeting with him/her.
– emphasized formatting of the vitae over the content.
– would not be available for meetings.
– did not draft the departmental statement well which
negatively influenced other faculty opinions of
candidates during review meetings.
Issues (ex. 3)

§ Mentors, particularly the committee chair,

were perceived to be prejudiced
advocates for mentees
– mentors would respond defensively to
questions posed by other faculty during
review meeting discussions
– mentor committee members sometimes
argued among themselves when
presenting the case for the rest of the
faculty
How we mentor today

We created explicit guidelines for:



1.Role, membership, and responsibilities of

mentor committees
2.Roles and responsibilities of tenured
faculty members
3.Review meetings process and procedures


 Documents can be found at: http://dha.design.umn.edu/intranet/


Purpose of the Mentor Committee

§ To advise candidate on choices that will reflect

positive tenure and/or promotion decisions
§ To understand and clarify how candidate’s work
meets tenure and/or promotion criteria
§ To provide encouragement and nurturing per UM
7.11 statement
§ To focus on mentoring, not assumed to be
unconditionally supportive of the final
tenure/promotion decision
§ To serve in an assistive role for probationary
faculty, not advocacy
Responsibilities of the Mentor
Committee
§ Assist with and review development of candidate’s
academic vitae and philosophy statements
§ Meet at least annually with candidate to review
performance, assist with communicating performance
via academic vitae and statements, and advise
candidate on choices
§ Understand candidate’s outcomes/accomplishments, i.e.,
the relative importance of teaching and scholarship, the
reputation of venues (publications, exhibitions)
§ Communicate opinions and standards from others’
perspectives
§ Deal with content (Department Head deals with collegiality)
§ Not lead the discussion nor draft the department’s
summary review statement
Membership of the Mentor
Committee
§ Three faculty members constitute the committee
§ Maximum of one member from DHA undergraduate
program (discipline) area
§ One member could be from outside of DHA
§ No close collaborator (prior to appointment) of the
candidate on the committee for at least the first two
years of probationary period
§ Membership changes during the probationary period:
– to minimize the personal investment of the mentors,
– for the candidate to hear diverse, but reinforcing
comments, and
– for mentor committee members and the candidate to learn
from one another.
§ Term of two years
§
Establishing the Mentor
Committee
§ Names are discussed between the new
faculty member and the department
head
§ Department Head asks the individual
faculty if he/she is willing to serve on the
committee
§ Mentee sets meeting time with committee
§ Department Head meets with committee
at first meeting
§ Mentee required to meet annually with
committee
Scribe of the Mentor Committee
(new)
§ One member of the committee volunteers to be
the Scribe but the Scribe should not be:
– the member within the discipline area, nor
– a collaborator on scholarship
§ Compiles a summary of the mentor committee
meetings; these become part of the candidate’s
permanent file.
§ The summary is signed by the probationary
faculty member that he/she received and
understands the information in the summary
§
Tenured Faculty Members’ General
Responsibilities
§ Review UM 7.11 statement, DHA 7.12
criteria, and procedures relevant to
decision to be made
§ Understand performance outcomes
addressed by DHA 7.12 criteria and
information that is and is not appropriate
for consideration
§ Be prepared to ask questions for
clarification of standards and procedures
before discussion of candidates
§
Tenured Faculty Members’
Responsibilities Specific to a
Candidate’s Review
§ Responsible for thorough review of the
candidate’s dossier with respect to the DHA
7.12 criteria
§ Review actual work—articles, artistic works,
syllabi, etc.
§ By the 3rd year of the probationary review (of a
normal 6 year review period), assess
candidate’s dossier to determine if candidate is
“getting up to speed,” i.e., is he/she developing
a dossier that will eventually meet the
expected outcomes of our post-tenure review
standards
§
Additional individual faculty
responsibilities
§ The Department Head assigns (new):
– one tenured faculty member to present the
accomplishments of the faculty member
being reviewed.
– one faculty member to chair the fall series
of review meetings (different chair each
fall).
§ Note: we complete all reviews in the fall for
tenure, promotion, and for probationary
reviews. We have found that to do so keeps us
focused on appropriate 7.12 expectations.
§
DHA Revised Review Process
Covers:
1. Candidate responsibilities
2. Department administration responsibilities
5. Responsibilities of the Presenter
6. Tenured faculty members’ responsibilities
9. Tenured faculty meeting to review candidates
§ Basic premises
§ Chairperson
§ Sequence of meetings
§ Discussion protocol
§ Recording information during discussion
8.
DHA Revised Process (con’t)
e.
6. Voting process
7.
9. The faculty summary statement
10.
12.Meeting outcome dissemination
13.
15.Process for applying for promotion to full professor


10.Additional issues to ensure a climate of cooperation

11.
Impacts of mentoring
structure in DHA
§ New process requires a broader array of
faculty to take part in the review process
§ Faculty have greater responsibility for
learning about new faculty
§ Distribution of roles engages faculty
(mentors, presenters, chairperson)
§ Successful tenure and promotion
decisions!
References
Bland, C., Weber-Main, A., Lund, S. & Finstad, D. (2005). The research-
productive department: Strategies from departments that excel. Bolton,
MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc.
Douah, R., Letawsky Shultz, N., Nackerud, S., Radcliffe, P., & Reubold, T.

(2007). Faculty mentoring at the University of Minnesota. Minneapolis, MN:

President’s Emerging Leaders Program, University of Minnesota.
Girves, J., Zepeda, Y., & Gwathmey, J. (2005). Mentoring in a post-affirmative

action world. Journal of Social Issues, 61(3), 449-479.

Johnson, K., Yust, B., & Fritchie, L. (2001). Views on mentoring by clothing and

textiles faculty. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 19(1), 31-40.

Kram, K. (1985). Mentoring at work: Developmental relationships in

organizational life. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman & Company.

Maack, M., & Passet, J. (1993). Unwritten rules: Mentoring women faculty.

Library and Information Science Research, 15(2), 117-142.

Roberts, A. (1999, November). The origins of the term mentor. History of

Education Society Bulletin, 64, 313-329 (as cited in Wikipedia, retrieved on

December 31, 2008 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentor#cite_note-
roberts_1999-2)