Mentoring Programs at CTE

The Center for Teaching Excellence works to facilitate peer mentoring relationships in a variety of ways, such as workshops, end of semester wrapper events, celebrations, and peer leadership opportunities. We also offer specific mentoring programs such as our Near Peer Mentoring Exchange and the recurring Mentoring in Minutes micro-sessions. One of the primary goals of CTE is to make faculty and graduate students feel like they belong to a community that values and supports the work they do in teaching, research, and service. These mentoring programs are one small way that we try to facilitate that feeling of community and collaboration at Duquesne.

CTE also runs a summer mentoring workshop series, Entering Mentoring, based on an established mentoring curriculum developed by the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching and was modified to work with Duquesne Faculty. The program goal is to provide formal training on mentoring students in research by focusing on (1) expectations of the mentor-mentee relationship, (2) the inclusion of scientific teaching in laboratory mentoring, (3) developing local communities (e.g. departments) that are focused on mentoring, and (4) the importance of thoughtful approaches to address diversity, inclusion, and equity. For more information about Entering Mentoring, please reach%20out%20to%20us.

Near Peer Mentoring Exchange

The goal of the Near Peer program is to promote faculty success by addressing the needs that incoming Duquesne faculty have expressed to us: make connections across departments, understand the University better as a whole, navigate the various resources available to them, and learn to balance personal and professional life.

Incoming full-time faculty and early-career faculty already at Duquesne are invited to participate in groups of four people (2 + 2).  A near-peer is someone who has succeeded at the next steps for which incoming faculty are preparing (e.g., annual reviews, third-year review). These cross-disciplinary groups do not replace the importance of mentors within your department and field.
One early-career faculty member will organize the group, with guidance and resources from CTE. Group members each contribute from their experience and ongoing learning. Sample topics: engaging students in learning, navigating department and university structures, understanding student evaluation of faculty, learning what research looks like in different fields, and fostering work-life balance.  Typically, tenure-track faculty are grouped together, as are non-tenure track faculty.
Groups choose their own meeting time.
Those in the program are expected to have active participation in monthly, one-hour small group meetings in October - March. There is an additional end of the year event in early May.

Please contact Steven Hansen via email or call (412) 396-5177.

 

Mentoring in Minutes

Wondering how your colleagues navigate various aspects of the academic career? Have questions about teaching, research, or other professional development areas? Over the course of the last year and a half, CTE has witnessed more than ever the ways in which our faculty learn from and support one another. As we navigate the ongoing pandemic but also move forward, we wanted to create opportunities for continuing these networks of learning and support.

As such, we're excited to pilot a new series that aims to provide space for intentional but informal mentoring across disciplines in a variety of areas, such as balancing teaching and research; publishing scholarship on teaching and learning; preparing for promotion and/or tenure; dealing with difficult moments in the classroom; grading efficiently; mentoring doctoral student projects; working with students beyond classroom academics. Each session will feature a faculty or staff colleague who has been successful within designated topic areas Mentors will offer strategies for success and provide encouragement. We are grateful to Laura Engel (Professor, English) for the idea of this mentoring network.

You can keep an eye out for upcoming Mentoring in Minutes events via our calendar.

 

Other Resources for Mentoring

MentorNet

"is the award-winning nonprofit e-mentoring network that addresses the retention and success of those in engineering, science, and mathematics, particularly, but not exclusively, women. Founded in 1997, MentorNet provides highly motivated protégés from many of the world's top colleges and universities with positive, one-on-one, email-based mentoring relationships with mentors from industry and academia."

Mentoring New Faculty: Advice to Department Chairs

This clear and concise article is geared specifically to department chairs, as it offers suggestions about conveying expectations and criteria for promotion, facilitating the acquisition of resources, and giving feedback on performance to new junior faculty.

Stanford Mentoring Skills Workshops

Stanford Medicine's Teaching and Mentoring Academy provides a helpful breakdown of mentoring skills along with workshops that focus on developing them.