Abstract
This book offers faculty and university leaders insights on issues surrounding institutional mentoring. It brings front and center the benefits of faculty informal mentoring initiatives, such as mentoring networks. In them, members have mutual support as they navigate the often-difficult path of academia. This is especially beneficial to minority faculty, who view institutional acclimatization as an abstraction of their ethno-cultural identity. An example is C-Y-F, an international women’s network, highlighted in this book. It is an example of women collaborating and co-mentoring each other across continents, diverse linguistic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, different generations, and different fields. The contributions by minority and international authors bring a variety of perspectives on formal and informal mentoring within or outside universities and offer a unique view of intercultural mentoring.
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Keywords
- Higher education
- Universities
- Mentoring
- Informal mentoring
- Mentoring institutional policies
- Mentoring practices
- Informal peer mentoring
- Global networks
This book proposes to engage the reader in an intellectual expedition on mentoring across politics, policies, and practices juxtaposed with the racial, ethno-cultural, and gender diversity of the authors. The authors’ voices will take the reader into a journey of global mentoring experiences, and will guide them to view mentoring, not only from its practical context, but also from a historical view of the universities. They will position the reader to view the present conditions of minorities and female faculty in the academy and engage the reader in the examination of alternative forms of mentoring. Alternative forms of mentoring needing to be supported by institutions of higher learning. The readings also bring forth the apparent absence or hidden policies on mentoring and the ongoing (intentional or unintentional) institutional practices that continue to maintain the invisibility of minorities and the inequitable presence of female faculty. Mainly, this book is about reflection and research of the present conditions of minorities and female faculty and their determination to engage in positive mentoring experiences within or outside their institutions. It is also about student cross-cultural co-mentoring. The book’s orchestration was based on the exigencies of faculty in the new global society and their invisibility and inequitable representation in institutions of higher learning, It was built on the belief that students need to be prepared to enter the academy; thus, they need to engage in mentoring experiences early in their academic preparation. This book is situated and constructed from faculty experiences, as well as from the perspectives of universities’ leaderships, which is uncommon in mentoring literature. The honest style of the authors’ narrations will engage the readers into reflecting into their own stories; thus, creating a silent dialogue between the writer and the reader. Each chapter informs and inspires!
The chapters in Part I—Mentoring Politics, Policies, and Practices serve as the canvas on which other chapters portray their experiences and color the many mentoring issues. The tinted realities of institutional mentoring come to light and are addressed in the chapters that follow. The second section provides insights into a global mentoring network. The third section focuses on the invisibility to visibility of Latino/Latina faculty. The fourth section is dedicated to mentoring in international contexts.
Mentoring Within and Outside Institutional Politics, Policies, and Practices describes a study that compared faculty-mentoring policies and structures, from the perspectives of universities’ leaderships.
A Website Analysis of Mentoring Programs for Latina Faculty, is a research in which the websites of the 25 Tier 1 High Research Universities (as recognized by the U.S. News and World Report, 2015) and Hispanic serving universities in the Southwest were analyzed for their relevance to mentoring Latina faculty.
1 Part II—Dynamics of a Global Mentoring Network Focuses on C-Y-F Network
In Synergy, Care, and Constructive Chaos the authors conduct a self-evaluation of the group aimed at better understanding of the intricacies of group dynamics in non face-to-face interactions. They point out the complexity of their network and the dynamics of synergy and chaos that transform chaos into constructive chaos.
Storying our Academic Career Transitions Within a Peer-Mentoring Community is an examination of the ways in which their Friends community within C-Y-F support their academic transitions, especially when they have to deal with challenges and transitions and by identifying three themes specific to dealing with uncertainty, support through collegiality, and support in their academic transitions.
Dynamics of Tensions and a Sense of Belonging in an Informal Peer Mentoring Community of Women Faculty addresses the challenges face by faculty on the path of tenure, promotion, and leadership. They use a case study approach and Community of Practice (CoP) framework and identify group tensions to provide suggestions for the solution of conflicts.
2 Part III—Ethnic and Sociocultural Issues and Faculty Responses
2.1 In Mentoring for Faculty Engagement from a Socially and Culturally Situated Perspective
The author explains how the lack of attention to a person’s identity development, in this case, faculty’s professional identity influences marginalized faculty to become disengaged because this type of relationship becomes oppressive.
Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Alliance (MGSA): Crafting a Diverse Peer Mentoring Network within and beyond a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) In this chapter, the authors from diverse backgrounds and at different universities utilize a self-study approach employing auto-ethnographic techniques similar to those previously reported by the C-Y-F network, as well as personal narratives describing their paths in the academy.
In Critical Multicultural Latino Mentoring in Higher Education, the authors argue that there are invisible obstacles interfering with Latinos/Latinas progression in the professoriate ranks of the academy. They narrate their experiences as co-mentors and acknowledge and describe CRT and LatCrit as salient theoretical frameworks that help expose the complex forms of oppression.
3 Part IV—Mentoring in International Contexts
Cross-Cultural Mentoring of Graduate Students: Evidence from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Academy in Central Asia (OSCE) identifies the essential characteristics for effective cross-cultural mentoring and describes the OSCE Academy located in Central Asia where Students from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan studied and completed their Master in Economic Governance and Regulation Program degrees in a cross-cultural mentoring context.
In Student Co-Mentoring in Israeli and American Universities: Promoting Mutual Academic Success, the author describes a peer co-mentoring program in Israel and later in USA. These programs create the conditions for students to establish co-mentoring peer networks.
The Capacity Building of Early Career Researchers Through Cross-Institutional Mentoring presents an initiative aimed at increasing faculty publication, momentum, and new research methodologies by tailoring mentoring specific to the needs of the early career researchers.
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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
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Johannessen, B.G.G. (2016). Introduction. In: Johannessen, B. (eds) Global Co-Mentoring Networks in Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27508-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27508-6_1
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Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
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