Faculty Mentoring

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Faculty Mentoring

• David Notkin, Eve RiskinUtah State University
  Department Heads Workshop
• May 9, 2005

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In 30 minutes, please cover

• Mentoring new faculty
• Mentoring mid-level faculty

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The whole story on new faculty

• Hire absolutely first-rate people
• Measure your units (and your own) success on
  their success
• Treat them honestly and clearly
• Its not just the Heads job but it falls on you

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First-rate Hires

• If somebody isnt smart, creative, and dedicated,
  its tough for them to succeed
• Simple mantra Excel in research and education
  (and later, in service)

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Be HonestIn informal situations, in annual
reviews, and in direct and indirect dealings

• I can make an offer to Sally Jones this year at
  a higher salary than yours. I think this is a
  good thing for the department in many ways. I
  promise to fix this inversion as soon as I can.
• This year were nominating Jane and Michael for
  Sloan Fellowships, but not you. We think youre
  a strong candidate but would benefit from waiting
  for a year. Barring major changes, we expect to
  nominate you next year.
• Weve decided to pass on moving your promotion
  forward this year. Were thrilled with your
  research, but you havent been showing sufficient
  effectiveness at teaching. Well work with you
  in a couple of dimensions, including (a) sitting
  down for an extensive discussion of what we
  perceive isnt going right, (b) helping you get
  help, and (c) working with you to hand-pick
  teaching assignments for next year that will let
  you focus on showing improvement.

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Some Challenges

• Faculty orientation is too much, too fast needs
  later reinforcement
• You need to stay in close touch, especially the
  first year
• Drop by their offices every 2-3 months just to
  say, Hey, whats up?
• Have an open door/email policy

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Quick Faculty Starters (Boice, Felder, and Brent)

• Reduced time spent on course prep (average of
  1-1.5 hours per lecture hour after their first
  semester)
• Spent more time on scholarly writing (3 or more
  hours per week)
• Integrated their research into undergrad classes
• Discussed teaching with colleagues
• Sought advice from colleagues (average of 4
  hours/week)
• Allowed active student participation in lecture

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Specific Ways to Mentor

• Be able to give their elevator pitch
• Promote them to funding agencies
• Read and comment on their proposals, e.g. NSF
  CAREER proposals
• Give them copies of successful proposals from the
  same program

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Specific Ways to Mentor (2)

• Awards
• What awards are they eligible for?
• Are they legitimate candidates?
• Who is on the selection committee?
• If you see another department in your field
  having great success, call their chair and ask
  how they do it.
• Help them plan pre-tenure tours 1-2 years in
  advance
• Prepare their promotion dossier with deep thought

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Specific Ways to Mentor (3)

• Give teaching relief at the outset
• Allow them to repeat courses
• Involve them in strategic planning
• Take them to lunch to show them the ropes
• Help them establish key research collaborations
  (group proposals)

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Bottom line

• Mentoring is an essential part of the future of
  your department
• Your department will be limited in where it can
  go if you dont mentor your people

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In 30 minutes, please cover

• Mentoring new faculty
• Mentoring mid-level faculty

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Expectations for Promotion to Professor

• Achieve promise that was strongly indicated when
  tenured
• Demonstrate leadership in some key dimension(s)
• Have a record that is twice that of a tenure
  case

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Signs that Someone is Stuck

• The field changes, but the person cant
  transition to new areas
• The person becomes discouraged and gives up
• Can almost never say Its me instead places
  blame externally (on the field, on the
  department, etc.)

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Some Possible Red Flags

• Little or no research/publications
• Few or zero graduated Ph.D.s
• Lousy funding and/or teaching
• No current students or funding and no plans to
  change
• Negative slope

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Some observations

• Was this a hiring problem?
• Did you hire for the person or the field?
• Its a career development issue, not a promotion
  issue
• Its hard to distinguish problems with the
  persons ideas from problems with the persons
  presentation of those ideas

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Some ideas (1)

• Seed money to encourage risk, allowing people to
  transform their research
• Help them compete with new agencies, e.g. NIH
  workshops for engineers
• Workshop on promotion-to-full

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Some ideas (2)

• Match stalled people with people who went from
  cold to hot
• Match stalled people with co-PIs in and out of
  the department
• Work on presentation of their ideas
• Encourage temporary focus on education, e.g.
  publish in education journals
• Internal sabbaticals

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One Pitfall

• Sometimes these stalled faculty are not pleasant
  to deal with
• They often become increasingly marginalized
• Its definitely tougher mentoring people you
  dont like
• But theres real value in helping them
• Their improvement is of significant value to the
  department
• A 10 improvement lasting 20 years is huge

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Important high-level advice

• The absolutely best time to discuss this topic is
  immediately upon tenure
• They are open to constructive suggestions
• But its easy to forget people at this stage
• They are doing great anyway.
• I can take it easy on at least one faculty
  review and evaluation this year.
• Doing this can be a big mistake, so keep
  mentoring early Associate Professors!

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Mentoring Full Professors

• Help them remain engaged in their research and
  teaching
• Dont over-use them for service
• Reward them for contributions to the dept.
• Help them develop their leadership skills by
  putting them in positions of leadership
• Treat them well someday they could become YOUR
  DEPARTMENT HEAD!