3.8 It takes a village to raise new faculty: implementing triangular  (Page 5/4)

“Those who have torches will pass them on to others”(Plato, Republic)

This scholarly essay features a formal mentoring program for new faculty in its first and crucial year of development in a research university culture. We are two mentoring leaders, a professor (program director) and dean (program sponsor), who focus on the program’s inception, implementation, and evaluation. Our emphasis is on the collective support and growth that allowed the program to take root and transition into its second year. The“village”of present is changing in the state of Florida and across the nation, with increased expectations for faculty scholarly productivity, as well as relevance and impact, within America’s major research universities like our own:“The point [has been] made clear: faculty who want tenure and promotion must do (and publish) research, preferably research that meets the needs of the university”(Brown, 2006, p. 51).

Knowing that newcomers experience significant challenges and dramatic change within the first year of their tenure-earning lives and that stress levels tend to escalate thereafter (Rice, Sorcinelli,&Austin, 2000; Sorcinelli, 1994), we are invested in the belief it takes a village to raise new faculty. In order to help new professors feel a sense of community in their workplaces and to learn how to maneuver the ambiguities of tenure systems, we heed the lessons of salient studies that underscore this dual problem in the academy (e.g., Boice, 1991; Rice, et al., 2000; Sorcinelli, 1994). Toward this end, mentoring and collegiality can go a long way to support tenure-earning faculty in understanding their complex environments and in adjusting and experiencing success more quickly (Bode; 1999; Ostroff&Kozlowski, 1993). While formal mentoring programs have increased in popularity nationwide, greater awareness and more documentation are definitely needed (Gibb, 1999), a goal this writing supports.

The College of Education (COE) at the University of South Florida (USF) is a public doctoral/research university. The primary aim of the New Faculty Mentoring Program (NFMP) is to promote the professional development and academic success of new faculty in their first two years. A second, equally important, purpose is to provide seasoned faculty with opportunities to share their expertise with a new colleague and within the college’s first mentoring network of new and established colleagues (for more information, consult the COE–USF’s NFMP website: http://www.coedu.usf.edu/main/faculty/mentoring.htm).