Mentorship is not separate from academic life, it is a crucial component of any creative and professional endeavor. Here, we focus on faculty mentorship in the Life Sciences. Academic relationships collectively influence the shape of the intellectual field and its boundaries. When documented,  academic trees of researchers can help us understand how entire ideas originated and were expanded upon by mentored protégés (Neurotree.org). It has been shown that both protégés and mentors experience mutual benefits of mentoring including a positive impact on career performance and various psychological benefits. While it is well accepted that mentoring students at an early-career stage is critical for academic success and retention, less attention and mentoring investment is allocated for individuals at the faculty level.

Despite published documentation on the need for faculty mentorship (Croke et al., 2020; Sim et al., 2022), mentoring initiatives and literature tend to be focused on undergraduate and graduate-level students. This pattern highlights the assumption that academics at the faculty level do not require guidance on how to navigate important work benchmarks, such as promotion, or personal benchmarks, such as childcare and wellness. What we do know about the empirical outcomes of faculty mentoring largely come from studies in academic medicine and nursing programs. The benefits of formal mentoring programs on junior faculty in academic medicine include higher promotion rates, higher retention rates, greater productivity, and greater career satisfaction (Bingmer et al., 2019; Croke et al., 2021; Gillis et al., 2023; McDaniel et al., 2020; Shieh & Cullen, 2019; Ullrich et al., 2020; Vanderzwan et al., 2023; and Yedavalli & Shah, 2019). These results beg the question, why are there not more formal mentoring programs for faculty in the Life Sciences? 

Formal mentorship programs in the Life sciences are few, but not entirely absent. Various pilot programs over the last five years have surfaced important recommendations for future initiatives (Choi et al., 2019; Hundey et al., 2020; Retrouvey et al., 2020; and Williams et al., 2022) while highlighting unique challenges of providing inclusive guidance for faculty members. Oftentimes, the experience of mentoring and receiving mentoring is not an equitable process (Horton, 2023; Oller et al., 2021; and Salinas et al., 2020) Further, the power dynamics within a community of faculty members is markedly distinct from the power dynamics of a student-faculty mentoring relationship. Thus, it is important to center Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Justice in any mentoring initiative. Here, centering DEIBJ in our practice is a step towards ensuring that all faculty are provided resources, offered opportunities and collaborations, and coached through important procedures and milestones. 

Mentorship is using experiential knowledge of a field to provide guidance to another earlier-stage member. On the other hand, receiving mentorship involves a strong self-reflective approach and intentions of personal growth and improvement. Importantly, acknowledgement of the context of an individual’s unique background and positionality is a useful practice that can clarify how to best meet the needs of a mentee where they are at. Positionality, for our context, can be understood as how an individual’s various social identities correspond to power and privilege in society. In academic spaces, positionality can have profound effects on how we engage with research/scientific inquiry, how we relate to one another, and how we form biases. For example, in a recent study on the experiences of mentorship among African American women faculty, both tenured and tenure-track participants reported experiencing bullying and/or incivility at one time or another (Horton, 2023). In addition, a mentee’s nationality may influence their understanding of cultural norms. A new junior faculty hire from another country outside the U.S. may need, but not ask for, occasional triage on navigating a cultural shift associated with moving to a new country. Not all backgrounds and positionalities are visible (Fig. 2), which can illuminate the notion of how assumptions can be made on the basis of what is seen or unseen. A successful and productive first-generation faculty member, for example, may still experience impostor syndrome as a result of “accidentally” (Bensimon & Dowd, 2009) pursuing higher education. A mentee’s needs can be varying and complex. Taking into consideration the collective investment needed to ensure the success of an early-career junior faculty member, the IFM proposes a departure from the traditional 1:1 mentoring dyad, to a 1:3 or a 1:4 committee-based structure. Table 1 provides a summary of the various mentoring needs; each area, alone or in combination with other areas of need, can define the role of a single mentor.

More information on mentor roles and areas of mentorship is included in this section to provide guidance towards possible directions for your mentoring pursuits. The IFM encourages participants to maintain a mentee-focused practice with a strong self-reflection approach. Optional and helpful self-assessment tools are available, such as the 21-item questionnaire (Univ. Wisconsin-Madison, 2013) meant to assess your perceived competency in six mentorship areas including: maintaining effective communication, aligning expectations, assessing understanding, fostering independence, addressing diversity, and promoting professional development. Lastly, for a more narrative introduction to mentorship in STEMM, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine have publicly available podcast episodes (nationalacademies.org) covering topics on the science and practice of mentoring in STEMM. 

First Author: Ashley Smiley, PhD (August 2023) 

Mentor Roles

Mentors are charged with helping their mentees learn to navigate and flourish in a new academic environment and meet their professional goals.  A mentor’s role, specifically in the context of supporting junior faculty, can take many forms ranging from career coach, sponsor or scientific reviewer, to confidant and strategic advisor. Formal mentoring relationships should be based on mentee’s clearly communicated needs and should be confidential.

Common Areas of mentorship 

• Guidance on career strategies, promotion, and aligning efforts with priorities 

• Strategies for jumpstarting a career at UC Berkeley and guidance with establishing a lab, navigating campus bureaucracies

• Award nominations, grant-writing strategies, visibility at conferences

• Sense of belonging; assistance understanding the unwritten rules  of academia.

• Building networks, help with making the transition to a faculty role 

• In-common identity (race, gender, sexuality), family dynamics (young children, aging parents) or shared interests 

Mentoring is beneficial for the mentor, the mentee, and the overall academic institution.  Mutual learning and collaboration have enormous potential to develop networks and strengthen communities while improving the career development of the participants. By enhancing the sense of belonging of junior faculty, effective mentorship improves campus climate, which positively impacts the educational experiences of undergraduates and graduate students.  Thus, the benefits are overlapping and shared by multiple groups in the academy.

First Author: Ashley Smiley, PhD (August 2023)

Benefits for Mentees

Studies have demonstrated that having a mentor and receiving more mentoring is associated with increased academic performance, professional development, positive self-image, psychological well-being, and emotional adjustment (Crisp & Cruz, 2009; Eby et al., 2008).

Faculty who are mentored: 

• Are more likely to be promoted (Beasley et al., 2006; Emans et al., 2008; Kosoko-Lasaki et al., 2006; Sambunjak et al., 2006). 

• Are more productive (Barker 2006; Rabatin et al., 2004; Thorndyke et al., 2006; Chew et al., 2003). 

• Publish more often (Sambunjak et al., 2006; Thorndyke et al., 2006; Ramanan et al., 2006; Steiner et al., 2002)

• Receive more NSF or NIH grants, and are more likely to publish in high impact journals (Blau et al., 2010; Carr et al., 20031)

• Have higher retention rates at their academic institutions (Kosoko-Lasaki et al., 2006; Zeind et al., 2005; Wingard et al., 2004)

• Have improved career development and satisfaction (Ramanan et al., 2006; Palepu et al., 1998)

• Have fewer feelings of isolation (Carr et al., 2003; Christman, 2003; National Academy of Sciences, 1997)

1Carr, Phyllis L., et al. Taking Root in a Forest Clearing: A Resource Guide for Medical Faculty. United States, Boston University School of Medicine, 2003.

Benefits for Mentors

Faculty who participate as mentors:

• Are exposed to fresh ideas and new perspectives (Johnson-Bailey & Cervero; Murray, 2001; Zellers et al., 2008)

• Have a sense of contribution and accomplishment (Fogg, 2003)

• Experience personal satisfaction (Johnson-Bailey & Cervero, 2004)

• Enjoy a revitalized interest in academic work (Murray, 2001)

• Contribute to their own academic legacy

Some sources borrowed from:  Downloadable handout from The Univ. of Arizona on The Benefits of Faculty Mentoring

First Author: Ashley Smiley, PhD (August 2023)

Characteristics of Effective Mentorship

Published resources may be of use to help shape expectations of the attributes of excellent mentors. The following study was published in The American Journal of Medicine (Cho et al., 2011) and is intended to provide an example of the qualities of top-tier mentors at UCSF. 

Important qualities of outstanding mentors were gathered from: 

• 53 mentees’ letters of recommendation written for the top 10 senior faculty finalists of a prestigious lifetime achievement award in mentorship

• 10 nominees were selected from a total eligible pool of >1,000 senior faculty members 

• 4 schools represented (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Dentistry) 

• Across 22 departments and divisions 

• Top 10 senior faculty aged 53–78 years old

• 30% self-identified as women 

5 major attributes of outstanding mentors were revealed: 

1. Exhibits admiral personal qualities, including enthusiasm, compassion, and selflessness

2. Acts as a career guide, offering a vision but purposefully tailoring support to each mentee

3. Makes strong time commitments with regular, frequent, and high-quality meetings

4. Supports personal/professional balance

5. Leaves a legacy of how to be a good mentor through role modeling and instituting policies that set global expectations and standards for mentorship

The results of this study highlight the characteristics of mentors that helped advance the careers of junior faculty in the health sciences.  Becoming an effective mentor might seem like an intimidating endeavor. Fortunately, there are abundant resources to help guide mentees and mentors: 

• Brown Univ. One-to-One Faculty Mentoring Program Guide for Participants

• Exemplary Junior Faculty Mentoring Programs - includes FAQ, tips for mentees/mentors, suggested topics, & further resources

• Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst Faculty Mentoring Best Practices

• UCSF Faculty Mentoring: Choosing a mentor, evaluating mentee goals, etc.

• Columbia Univ. Guide to Best Practices in Faculty Mentoring

• National Academies Science of Effective Mentoring in STEMM

• DEIBlueprint Toolkit Database

For additional case studies, visit the visual slide deck of this study below and learn about famous mentoring relationships that contributed to the history of the first American woman who traveled to space and one of the leading doctors who helped develop the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.:

Characteristics of Effective Mentorship & Mentors

First Author: Ashley Smiley, PhD (August 2023) 

What is inclusivity? 

• https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/dei-resources/glossary: “The act of creating environments in which any individual or group can be and feel welcomed, respected, supported and valued as a fully participating member. An inclusive and welcoming climate embraces difference and offers respect in words and actions for all people. Inclusion integrates the fact of diversity and embeds it into the core academic mission and institutional functioning.”

• Inclusion Excellence: https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/dei-resources/glossary: “Organizations that have evolved beyond diversity into fully integrated, inclusive entities that: Value and embrace diversity and inclusion;

  •  focus on the individual, moving beyond a focus on groups;

  •  focus on creating a work environment where each person is recognized and developed, and talents are routinely tapped into;

  •  practice tangent differentiation strategies;

  •  value people because of, not in spite of, their differences;

  •  take steps to move toward an environment that is equitable for all;

  •  internalize inclusion as a core value, meaning it neither changes quickly nor is affected by economic trends;

  • see human equity as an essential element of sustainable competitive advantage or organizational effectiveness;

  •  integrate inclusion into all aspects of the organization: all employees consider themselves responsible for creating a fair, equitable and inclusive environment.”

• https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/college_of_chemisty_deib_strategic_plan_2021-2026_.pdf: Inclusion - as defined by the American Association of Colleges & Universities - “The creation of opportunities for historically underserved populations to have equal access to and participate in educational programs that are capable of closing the achievement gaps in student success and completion.”

• Mentoring for Inclusivity: Faculty Resource Guide - Equity, Inclusion...: 

  • Learn how to convene inclusive meetings

  • Consider and improve the climate for students with disabilities

  • Recommendations for an inclusive environment for LGBTQIA+

  • Check out Ten Simple Rules for Building an Anti Racist Lab

First Author: Ida Wilson, Doctoral Candidate (August 2023)

On Power and Positionality 

Power and positionality play a pervasive role in shaping academic spaces, and it is important to be cognizant of these orientations when developing mentoring relationships. UC Davis’ DEI glossary defines positionality as “refer[ring] to the location of a person in the organizational structure of an institution. It considers what authority a person has, to whom they report and who reports to them. What power others have in relationship to the person and what power the person has in relationship to others. It is concerned with the variables that affect their status within the organizational structure and their capacity to act with legitimacy.”

Based on your position and identity within the academic community, individuals  may experience heightened privilege in some areas (e.g., career stage, citizenship, body size, socioeconomic position) relative to peers, while experiencing exclusion in other areas (e.g., sexuality, gender, (dis)ability, race/ethnicity). The intersecting identities that we hold can, at times, be self-conflicting and make navigating social and political dimensions a complex process. Further, they also contribute to interpersonal power dynamics within the institution. An assistant professor may face a situation where those that offer guidance and mentorship (i.e., senior faculty) may also be the gatekeepers to tenure promotion. Behaving autonomously within that power dynamic is often challenging. Acknowledging these dynamics are important first steps towards internalizing inclusion and creating an equitable environment for all.  (See: The Academic Wheel of Privilege nasa.gov - Dr. Flavio-Azevedo,2022.)

Documented challenge: The institutional exclusion of women 

• In every STEM discipline, women faculty of color are disproportionately under-represented relative to their representation in the overall population (Fox Tree & Vaid, 2022).

• Women tend to have fewer or no mentors and face greater isolation (Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001; Thompson, 2008; Washburn, 2007).

• Women are more likely than men to leave academia due to lack of mentoring (Preston, 2004).

• Women faculty of color are particularly at risk of being excluded from quality mentorship (Davis, et. al, 2021).

• Women experience more unconscious bias in the academy compared with men (e.g., stereotyping, tokenism; Noe, 1988). 

• Women have XX-fold greater service responsibilities than men and struggle more with work-life balance (Misra, Lundquist, & Templer, 2012). 

• Women receive less instrumental mentoring but more psychosocial support compared to men (McKeen & Bujaki, 2007). 

• Both women and men faculty offer less mentoring and fewer resources to women-identifying students (Moss-Racusin et al., 2012).

• The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted the research productivity of women compared with men.  For example, the proportion of medically oriented papers with women first authors were 19% lower during the pandemic compared with pre-pandemic levels (Anderson et al, 2020 eLife, https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58807).  Women and parents of young children also had greater reductions in work hours, started fewer new projects, and engaged in fewer new collaborations (Viglione, 2020, Nature doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01294-9).  This greater impact of COVID-19 on women’s research productivity has been corroborated by numerous studies (Krukowski et al, 2021, J. Women’s Health, https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2020.8710; Myers et al, 2020, Nat. Human Behav. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0921-y; 

Opportunities for Empowerment, Egalitarianism and Participation

The University of California and the National Academies have great resources for practical guidance on inclusivity

• • Holding inclusive scientific meetings

  • 10 Simple Rules for Building Anti Racist Labs

  • 14 Recommendations for LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Environments in Academic Biology

  • Race Matters: The Do’s and Don’ts for discussing race

  • Changing the Script: Reducing implicit bias in faculty review and improving departmental climate

  • UCSF Gender Inclusiveness Resources

  • Promising Practices for Addressing the Underrepresentation of Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine: OPENING DOORS

For more resources, explore Berkeley’s DEIBlueprint toolkit.

First Author: Ashley Smiley, PhD (August 2023)

Link to Cited Articles and Additional Collected Readings