How Attending to Gender Difference Might Disrupt Your Faculty Mentoring Program

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Female Narratives and Identities as Educationalists and Leaders for Agency

Abstract

As part of an institutional research initiative on mentoring, 100 faculty members at a medium sized Midwestern public university completed a survey about the aspects of mentoring that were important to them. In this paper, those data answer the following research questions:
-What is valuable in the mentoring relationship?
-Does what is valuable change based on the gender of the faculty member?
The findings indicate faculty had strong opinions about what was important in the mentoring relationship. There were also significant gender differences. Women were more concerned with having a mentor who explained how to navigate the academy and thought well of them. Men showed a higher concern about having a mentor who explained the mechanics of tenure and promotion.

Author

• Teri L. Sosa, Governors State University