Abstract:
Mentoring programs have been shown to have a strong impact in the business environment and public school education. However, there has been little interest in mentoring university faculty except as it relates to discrete portions of the population, e.g. women and minorities. Furthermore, there is very little information on mentoring programs in agricultural colleges. We present five case studies of the M.A.P. program (Mentoring Assistant Professors)initiated in 1993 in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture. Not all the examples are positive, but the mentoring program has improved the success rate in the tenure and promotion process, and raised the level of comfort of new faculty as they navigate this difficult journey. However, the program has not expanded to include associate professors seeking promotion. Suggestions for sustainability and improvement of M.A.Ps include educating both the mentors and protégés as to their respective responsibilities, providing rewards for mentoring, incorporating progress timelines and milestones, and using case studies to help avoid common pitfalls in the mentoring process.
Keywords:
mentoring program, untenured faculty, academics
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