Welcoming and mentoring new faculty
September 21, 2023
Some of you have heard me tell this story. The setting: Fall 2000, the Hinkle Hall second floor conference room, my first Xavier English Department faculty meeting. The characters: well, let’s just say only two of the folks in attendance that day would attend a department meeting today. The plot: the department chair announces a new CAS Dean’s Office mentoring initiative and asks for volunteers to mentor the two new junior faculty. Two full professors commence a duel over who gets to mentor the new guy, parrying back and forth with their qualifications until one finally lays his sword upon the field and bows to the victor. A back or two may have been clapped before the chair brought the meeting back to order. “And who would like to mentor Jodi?” Ensue crickets. I mean, a lot of crickets.
The chair never did find a senior faculty member willing to mentor me, so he did it himself and did it well, seeing me through tenure and promotion to full professor. Tyrone Williams was a good mentor for me not only because he understood what it was like to navigate the big personalities and arcane customs of a (thankfully) bygone-era English department built on an antiquated academic model of battling egos, but also because he was a good listener and true confidante, two qualities essential to a good mentor. Mentoring, after all, is ultimately about community building. We hire new people because we want them to contribute to our community. We mentor new people because we want them to succeed in our community.
English welcomed five new full-time faculty members this academic year and one last year. I hope they have felt welcomed, truly welcomed into a very different department than I encountered 23 years ago. If I may not-so-humble brag about our department, we are now a pretty cohesive community. Intentionally crafted mentoring practices deployed in the 20+ years since CAS began a mentoring program – including setting up mentoring partnerships prior to a new faculty member’s arrival as well as reassigning mentors when needed – have played a part in that community building.
Beyond building a departmental mentoring structure, I have no magical tips or tricks for being a good mentor other than simply to listen and offer support. We all want to be heard, especially those who may be disempowered by long-entrenched institutional hierarchies and gatekeeping. The pandemic reminded us that we are terribly fallible and fragile, and while extending grace costs nothing, the gains are immeasurable. So, listen and care and cherish and cultivate and tend to the community. And if you do find yourself in a room being asked to mentor someone else on the spot, go ahead, raise your hand. Welcome them to the community.
Jodi Wyett, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of English
Photo by Mark Pan4ratte on Unsplash
