CBSHS begins college-wide faculty mentoring program

Beginning this fall, College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences faculty will participate in departmental and college-level mentoring programs that will provide them with opportunities to attend a wide array of educational workshops in an effort to enhance professional development opportunities for faculty.

The college-level program is designed to complement work already being done in the college’s departments; in some instances, departmental programs are in their infancy while in others they are more fully established. In order to ensure all faculty have access to mentoring, the college-level mentoring program will pair faculty with mentoring partners or pull them together in mentoring groups with opportunities for both within and across department mentoring, said Denise Anderson, associate dean for undergraduate studies in CBSHS.

“Improving mentoring across campus is a huge goal of the university. By working with our departments and doing work that complements what they are providing their faculty in-house, I feel that we can make a real difference in the lives of our CBSHS faculty,” Anderson said.

As part of the mentoring program, the college will offer monthly workshops for all faculty on topics such as teaching techniques; tenure, promotion, and reappointment (TPR), research portfolios, and work/life balance among many others.

This program is born from an assessment by faculty who went through a year-long leadership development program known as Trailblazers, which is part of TIGERS Advance, a university-wide National Science Foundation funded initiative focused on institutional transformation through improving gender equity. As part of Trailblazers, participants learned more about the need for quality mentoring and how to bring mentoring programs to their departments in support of the TIGERS Advance goal of Enhancing Faculty Mentoring and Leadership Development.

In recognition of the importance of quality mentoring, up to 10 outstanding mentoring awards will be presented at the end of the academic year with a plaque and $500 in professional development funds for each recipient.

The kick-off to the program will be Friday, Sept. 7, and mentees will meet their mentors at the second event on Friday, Sept. 21.

For more information about the mentoring program, contact Denise Anderson at dander2@clemson.edu.