Mutual Mentorship
October 24, 2024
During my first three-and-a-half months at Xavier, my main interaction with the Sustaining Excellence project has been through my support of our college’s numerous new majors, minors, and concentrations. At yesterday’s Convocation, I enjoyed learning more about the many initiatives that address areas beyond the establishment of new programs. I am particularly encouraged by the university-wide initiatives related to faculty pay equity and faculty workload, as well as the various initiatives related to Organizational Health and Culture, especially those directed at employee health and wellbeing.
These initiatives are very close to my own heart, and I am looking forward to supporting them in the College of Arts & Sciences. Mentorship is a closely related area about which I feel very strongly, and I am equally looking forward to exploring the model of Mutual Mentorship for our college. The concept of Mutual Mentorship originated, to my knowledge, at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and it represents a departure from the idea that a mentor should resemble a Guru, a wise expert who dispenses wisdom, knowledge, and spiritual guidance to a disciple. True Gurus are very rare, and it is unlikely that everybody will be so fortunate as to find one. Instead, Mutual Mentoring is based on the two ideas that (1) we need an entire network of mentors to guide us through different parts of our lives and careers, and (2) mentoring is a two-way endeavor from which both, the mentee as well as the mentor, benefit.
Akin to the notion that it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a department—and often a university or an entire discipline—to help a colleague be successful. Rather than identifying a single senior faculty member who is expected to assume the role of Guru, all of us need to step up to support our junior colleagues. Everyone who participates in tenure and promotion deliberations should have provided guidance to the colleague who is up for promotion. And often the best guidance might not be available within our own department or college, so we need to seek support elsewhere. One role of the university and the colleges is to provide structure and—when possible—funding to support such endeavors.
Good mentorship requires effort. But mentorship is also rewarding, and I have found that the reward goes far beyond the feeling of having done a good deed. I learn something new from every interaction that I have. When I provide guidance to a junior colleague, I learn how my discipline has changed since my own junior days. When I offer insights to a mid-career colleague, I have an opportunity to reflect on my own challenges in publishing and rising to the rank of professor. When I discuss ideas with a department chair or program director, I learn something new about their discipline and how its culture differs from that of my own. And when I offer suggestions to a staff member, I learn more about the relationship between faculty and staff and the often somewhat insular views that we faculty hold. More often than not, I feel that I benefit at least as much from the mentorship interaction as my mentee.
In short, I believe that the Mutual Mentorship concept will work very well within the framework of Ignatian Belonging. I am looking forward to exploring how Mutual Mentoring might find a place within the university’s ongoing efforts of fostering faculty and staff development.
Dr. Florenz Plassmann
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
