Faculty Mentoring Program

Faculty Mentoring Program 

As a community, we want to help our colleagues achieve career milestones, such as tenure or promotion. We also want them to feel supported and to be happy!  Mentors can provide career, research, teaching, and personal advice.  UMSI offers three kinds of mentoring support: primary; group; and peer.  

Mentoring activities are also evaluated on a yearly basis at the end of the academic year typically in the form of a short survey with a few open-ended questions. Example items include: “What was the most valuable aspect of your primary/group/peer mentoring interactions?” “What is the one aspect of your primary/group/peer mentoring experience that you would like to improve?,” or “Do you feel that the frequency of primary/group/peer meetings was adequate?”

Primary Mentoring: Assistant, Associate, Research and Clinical, Lectures III 

Primary mentoring refers to a specific more senior faculty member appointed to provide guidance to a specific more junior faculty member.  The anchor of the UMSI mentoring program, the Associate Dean for Faculty makes these assignments as part of the service assignment process (with assignments announced before the start of a new academic year). The service assignment spreadsheet shows these assignments. 

The logic of primary mentor assignment largely reflects research affinities and/or existing relationships. If there is no obvious mentor within UMSI, the Associate Dean for Faculty will assist associate professors in recruiting an outside mentor of their choice.

Primary mentor responsibilities: The expectation is that the primary mentor will attend the mentor-mentee kickoff or orientation session (as it is offered) and then find regular times to meet. The expectation for this service assignment is about 10 total hours of mentoring per academic year (though mentors can exceed).  As a heuristic, this translates to meeting about 1x a month for about an hour.  Mentors are funded by the Associate Dean’s office to take a mentee out to lunch (please follow these UMSI Hosting policies for information about frequency and obtain reimbursement).  Below are a few more suggestions. 

Some ideas about topics mentors could address: 

• Who, outside UMSI, they’d like to be connected with during the coming year (e.g., specific other researchers, Program Officers, reporters);

• professional development activities they’d like to engage in this year;

• barriers to success, and potential solutions;

• requests for support that could be made of the UMSI administration;

• publishing venues for particular pieces of work;

• how to mentor doctoral students; and

• how to teach effectively without it consuming all your time;

• offer advice on how to manage invitations and requests for giving talks.

Mentors are also encouraged to review and provide feedback on materials that each mentee produces. 

Some things mentors can provide feedback on:

• Faculty annual review form (FAR);

• Casebook materials, if they are up for promotion this year; and

• Research grant proposals or publications.

What mentees can do: 

• Initiate meetings if your mentor doesn’t;

• ask and provide materials for review at least three weeks before they are due;

• ask for advice on whether to say yes or no to invitations and requests;

• attend peer mentoring events (primarily for Assistant Professors; some for Associates).

There are also a number of good resources for both mentors and mentee developed by UM and beyond

• Mentoring tips for senior faculty

• Good Practices for mentoring

Launch Committee for 1st Year Tenure Track Assistant Professors

UMSI participates in the UM Launch Committee Program sponsored by Advance (http://advance.umich.edu). The ADVANCE Program promotes faculty diversity in all fields and aims to support university faculty in recruitment, retention, climate, and leadership. Launch committees provide support and guidance to new junior faculty (tenure track, assistant professor) as they begin their careers at Michigan. This mentoring is available in the first year at Michigan. The Launch Committee focuses on areas that are essential for a new hire to be successful and consists of the following five members (a senior faculty member in the department who is also the new assistant professor's mentee, the  Associate Dean for Faculty,  a senior faculty member from outside the department, and ADVANCE faculty member and the mentee). 

Group Mentoring: Assistant, Associate, Research and Clinical, Lectures III 

Group mentorship refers to advice offered in a collective setting. A number of optional mentoring sessions are organized by the Associate Dean for Faculty and are held for instructional faculty throughout the academic year.  In addition to a new faculty orientation meeting that is held at the beginning of each year for newly hired (all ranks) faculty, these are optional monthly mentoring sessions and often include and are held at the lunch hour. The agenda is driven by the faculty who participate. In the past, faculty have requested a mix of peer mentoring/talking among themselves on a topic, requesting that specific faculty with expertise or experience on a topic attend to share insights or UMSI staff to join them for a discussion. This programming is run through the office of the Associate Dean for Faculty. 

Group Mentoring: Early Career Proposal Program 

Every year the Office of Research offers a program for early-career faculty to assist with the preparation of a competitive proposal. This program utilizes small groups for feedback and accountability as well as large-group information sessions. All junior faculty are invited to attend, even those who may not be planning to submit in the current year, recognizing this process is beneficial for all early career researchers. By participating in this program, assistant professors are committing to prepare their research ideas and thinking about their research trajectory, without necessarily tailoring to any specific solicitation or funder. 

Peer Mentoring: 

Peer mentoring is learning among faculty members initiated and led by members of the group. Past examples at UMSI have included writing groups and journal clubs. Announcements about those are more decentralized, but typically get announced throughout the first semester of a term.