A Model Mentor

Inside the academy and out, there is much talk of the importance of mentoring, of why younger students, faculty, and employees need it, of the potential benefits that will accrue to them from it, and of the rarity of dedicated and effective mentors. In the academy, mentorship takes two forms. One involves senior faculty helping junior colleagues learn the quirks of their department and institution and the often-opaque requirements for achieving tenure. It is a time-limited relationship of near equals that focuses on how to help junior colleagues work successfully within the given system. The other involves faculty and graduate students. If done well, such mentoring is a project extending not only over the years when a student is taking courses and writing a dissertation but well beyond them to a time when they are working and publishing. A good mentor imparts their own knowledge and skills, helps young scholars find their own interests and voice, and aids them in navigating the ever-more precarious job market and work–life balance. A good mentor needs to both acknowledge the enormous power differentials between faculty and graduate students and treat the latter as equal adults. A good mentor both helps a mentee understand the system as it exists and offers alternative values and visions of how the academy can be a more humane and just environment. Finally, a good mentor should expect no monetary rewards or recognition from colleagues for the time and intellectual and emotional energy put into mentoring. The ever-more corporate university pays only lip service to mentoring and teaching.