Every department approaches mentoring differently. Some look to the chair as the organizing force behind junior mentoring, while others have long-standing programs of assigning unofficial mentors from within the department to new hires. Whatever the system may be, chairs should nonetheless be sure that pre-tenure colleagues are receiving active and meaningful support from an explicitly defined resource in the department.
Chairs also should take charge of meeting with pre-tenure faculty at least once per semester through the pre-tenure review, and then at least once yearly until tenure. These check-in meetings don't have to be terribly official, but they should ideally have a few agenda points covering progress since your last discussion, they should explicitly discuss planning toward the next formal evaluation, and they should leave time for your colleague to ask questions.
Be consistent (planned well in advance, and respectful of all participants’ time)
Be flexible in terms of content and direction; set a tone that signals this is a casual conversation and not a job interview!
Ask a set list of questions at each meeting like, "What went well this semester? What didn't go well, and why? What would you like to change and why?" These questions make it clear that perfection isn't the goal, and that reflection is what we're looking for.
Remain confidential, with the understanding that the questions, concerns, or issues discussed will not be shared with others in the department
Build in some follow-up; use the first few minutes of a meeting to discuss the ideas or plans that came out of the last session. Follow-up could alternately take place over email between sessions, but cohort members should decide together how much mentoring discussion is comfortable outside the monthly session.
Include some documentation. This can be simple; share an agenda in advance, and take notes directly on the page, or write up notes immediately afterward. Keep in separate personnel files to refer to later for the purposes of evaluation and promotion, any possible disputes, notes for drafting a Dodge Award nomination, etc.
See this document for how one department has created a mentoring program including both peer departmental mentoring and mentoring by the chair.
ASK WHAT KINDS OF SUPPORT WOULD BE HELPFUL. This is especially critical in supporting faculty from underrepresented groups and from non-traditional paths in academia. Sometimes there are obvious things we can offer that we just haven't thought of yet, and the most direct line to effective mentoring is explicitly asking what questions new faculty have, how often they'd like to meet, if there are particular parts of the college they'd like to learn more about, etc.
Encouragement is worth its weight in gold during Year One. Notice small victories (getting grades in on time, useful comments in department meetings, etc.). Find ways to empathize -- without engendering panic -- about the real challenges of the first year (all new preps, all new students, etc.)
The chair's positive feedback is beneficial for the chair, too: a style of engagement in which the chair offers specific positive feedback freely and often is a really effective long-term professional-development approach, by making conversations about departmental expectations part of the norm. See more on this in Kathleen Murray Harris' article on delivering criticism here.
"Make delivering positive feedback part of your routine—don’t just squeeze it into unpleasant conversations. The point is not simply to placate people or give everyone a trophy; positive feedback is a professional-development tool. First of all, it’s constructive—it’s useful for people to know what they’re doing well so they can continue doing it. Second, it helps create a culture that’s more open to and tolerant of feedback, says Porter. Be specific here, too. Say, “I really like the way you handled that challenge,” or “I appreciate that you spoke with other departments to get their buy-in.” And say it often. “For every piece of criticism, you should give at least five pieces of praise,” says Hauser. “This gets people to a place where they are craving feedback.”
Be explicit about expectations! Nothing is scarier than the ambiguous chair. Tell your junior colleagues about the departmental culture that might've become second-nature to the rest of you: is there a general average for student evaluations that you're looking for? Will you all notice if your junior colleagues don't attend the end-of-year picnic, or is that genuinely not a big deal?
Help them navigate college-wide service. Be reasonable about protecting them from Senate too early in their career, but also encourage them to choose a service option that will both make a difference and help them to say no to other service requests.
Offer advice about how to balance teaching and research. If your department doesn't have a statement on research expectations already, begin a conversation with all members of the department on what appropriate research benchmarks should look like at each stage of evaluation. (Again, the goal here is to be explicit about expectations.)
Point out paths to success instead of warning about impending failure.
For ex: “I’d really encourage you to stick to x number of conferences a year to focus your time and energy while you’re still learning the culture of the college.” INSTEAD OF “It’s a bad idea to plan on so many international conferences during the year, because you’re likely to get behind in your grading, and your colleagues will start to resent your time away from the department.”
Have a few baseline conversations (maybe at the fall retreat? One each fall?) to re-affirm what the department collectively agrees is acceptable and appropriate mentoring.
It's reasonable for this conversation to begin with just senior faculty, but eventually it needs to include pre-tenure faculty to ensure there's room for questions and negotiation where necessary.
For example:
Should all senior faculty offer feedback to pre-tenure colleagues, or should that be left to the chair as the department authority?
Will you agree to make classroom visits before an evaluation? How many are appropriate, and will you offer to trade visits so junior faculty can sit in on senior classrooms, too?
Can you affirm what is suitable feedback (structure and content of lesson plans, for example) and what is NOT suitable feedback (recommendations for professional wardrobe choices for women vs. men, for example)?
Will you agree that you'll collectively make an effort to support pre-tenure colleagues' on-campus projects such as faculty lectures, colloquia, etc?
Guide to Best Practices in Faculty Mentoring: A Roadmap for Departments, Schools, Mentors, and Mentees. Columbia University, Office of the Provost (nd).
Faculty Mentoring Models and Effective Practices. Hanover Research, 2014.
Unfinished Business: The Impact of Race on Understanding Mentoring Relationships, by Blake-Beard, Murrell, and Thomas. Organizational Behavior, July 2006.