Opening Borders: The Development of Emerging Mentoring Practices

• In Event: Women’s Ways of Mentoring in the Academy: Reflections Across Transnational Borders

Abstract

Entering the academy as a new tenure track professor is a transition of social, cultural, educational, and for some, linguistic challenge. The sociocultural and institutional norms of an education setting are as much a part of induction as preparing courses, teaching, and developing a plan for the professional trajectory of retention, promotion, and tenure. In the midst of multiple pressures and pulls in varying professional and personal arenas, each of us finds that informal mentoring has been the sustenance of resiliency.
This paper examines the process of collaboration that three groups of women engaged in informal mentoring relationships as a global platform for scholarship, mentoring, international community and a deeper understanding of academic life across international borders. We frame our conversation within the literature addressing collaboration and mentoring for women in the academy (Belenkey, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1997; Chandler, 1996; Chesler, & Chesler, 2002; hooks, 1994; Luna & Cullen, 1995; Middleton, 2007). The question guiding our conversation is: In what ways has informal mentoring among women opened borders in scholarship, teaching, service and psychosocial and emotional balance?
As a collaboration of fourteen female early career faculty members representing six ethnic groups, across academic disciplines, and living in four continents, our shared interest in mentoring provided us with an opportunity for meeting, connecting and initiating further collaboration. Technology became the vehicle for our global collaboration. As Ryan and Katz (2007, p. 14) indicated “collaboration requires a commitment to talk [via SKYPE, SKYPE chat, face-to-face, email, telephone] and meet regularly [weekly, monthly, across time zones and during hours when normal people are asleep], find time and places to work [churches, living rooms, bedrooms, hotels, offices, beach houses] and add play [travel, fun, dancing, sightseeing, touring, sharing meals, reminiscing, catching up] into the work.”
We draw from our lived experiences of informal mentoring by examining our collaboration through narrative inquiry. Narrative inquiry allows us to include the boundaries of our varied social contexts and “make sense of life as lived…..it is trying to figure out the taken-for-grantedness” nature of our collaborative experiences (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 78).
We have found that our informal mentoring opened borders in the following ways: international publications; global collaboration; expanded knowledge in the use of technology; reinvigoration in teaching practice; facilitation of personal and professional balance; development of personal, professional and intellectual identity; development of knowledge about new places within the “safety” of others; and cultural sensitivity across race, economics and language.
Given that in the United States 41.8% of faculty are women, and more women are enrolling in higher education than men (NCES, 2008), it is imperative to understand the needs of women and the ways informal mentoring practices contribute to their success in the academy. Mentoring across borders and developing a deeper understanding and sensitivity to the needs of individuals in academia across cultures provides a rich source of knowledge for the preparation of college students for a global society.

Authors

• Anne L. Kern, University of Idaho

• Joyanne Beverly De Four-Babb, Caribbean Educators' Research Initiative

• Ann Unterreiner, Valdosta State University

• Ke Wu, University of Montana