How to set up a mentorship team
Plus no references at all to chocolate, cats, or Canadian pop culture from years gone by. This may be a first.
Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here.
Has your career benefited from the generous guidance and mentorship of others? When I started my faculty career in 2008, my college assigned all new faculty an official mentor. My late (and beloved) colleague Dr. Joe Garcea was assigned to me.
Having Joe as my mentor was like winning a lottery. Joe was a source of wisdom and support for my career, advising me on matters relating to teaching, research, collegial processes, and leadership. Joe also was a role model for treating people with dignity and respect. I miss Joe Garcea deeply and I am grateful for his mentorship and friendship.
Having people who care about your career success and who happily share their wisdom and experience is powerful. But establishing mentorship relationships can be difficult and awkward.
Formalizing mentorship can help by initiating the relationships and providing structure. This is an area where academic leaders can easily make a positive and lasting difference. The fact that my college assigned Joe as my mentor allowed me to feel more comfortable asking him questions and seeking his advice.
A model I really like is mentorship teams. The team model gives the mentee a number of people to call upon, and the mentee gets insights from different vantage points and lived experiences.
Setting up a mentorship team for yourself or for someone else is easy. To make it even easier, use or adapt the model below.
One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Set Up a Mentorship Team
To set up a mentorship team for yourself, you can either invite people directly or ask a trusted senior colleague, such as your department chair, to issue the invitations. (Trust me: department chairs are experts at emailing people.) Here is some text you can use or adapt:
Hi Loleen,
I would like to create a mentorship team for myself and was hoping you could assist me with this by issuing the invitations. I will provide you with email text to use and the names and contact information for the potential team members, so all you would need to do is send the emails and follow up.
Is this something you would be willing to do for me?
Best,
Daveed
To set up a mentorship team for someone else, start by asking them if they actually want one. Here is some text you can use or adapt:
Hi Daveed,
Would you be interested in establishing a mentorship team to help inform your career? Here is how the structure typically works, although we can adjust it if you like:
We establish a team of three scholars – typically with at least one in the department or university – who are a step or two further along in their career. The chair has the responsibility to call two meetings per year and run these meetings.
Prior to the first meeting, the mentee provides the team with a draft set of goals over the next five years and plans to meet those goals while maintaining work-life balance. At the first meeting, the team and the mentee discuss the draft. This discussion includes research (topics, publications, grants), teaching, service, and overall profile. At the end of the meeting, the mentee should have a clear five year plan that will be updated and adjusted twice a year.
Twice a year, the team meets with the mentee and discusses the goals, timelines, and overall strategic career direction. (In advance of this meeting, the mentee provides the team with a summary to guide the discussion.)
In between meetings, the team is available to provide feedback to the mentee regularly, either as individuals or as a collective. Often the team is useful to advise the mentee on how to handle particular invitations or opportunities, sorting out what to say no or yes to.
If this is of interest, I am very happy to put together a mentorship team for you. Would you like me to move forward on this front? If so, please let me know four or five names of people you would like me to invite. Once I hear back from you I will move things along.
All the best,
Loleen
To start putting the team together, start with the chair. Here is the email text I use (I also include the mentorship team description from the email text above).
Hi Lin-Manuel,
I am setting up a mentorship team (described below) for Daveed and I was wondering if you would be willing to chair it. Your role would be to call the twice annual meetings and to serve as a team member.
Is this something you would be willing to take on? Daveed specifically requested you for the team.
All the best,
Loleen
Once the chair is confirmed, it is time to lock in the team members. More email!
Hi Phillipa,
I am setting up a mentorship team for Daveed and I was wondering if you would be a team member. Lin-Manuel (copied here) will be chair. Your role would be to participate in two meetings per year.
Is this something you would be willing to take on? Daveed specifically requested you for the team.
All the best,
Loleen
The final step is to pass the baton to the team chair and get out of the way. This is the best part:
Hello Daveed,
Great news! Lin-Manuel (copied here) agreed to chair your mentorship team and Phillipa and Leslie have both agreed to be team members. Lin-Manuel will set up the first meeting and I will leave things in his capable hands. I am excited that you will be working with such a great team!
All the best,
Loleen
A handful of emails and that is it. Getting things moving along simply requires sending the first one.
What is your own experience with mentorship? Please let me know!
Chipping Away: What I Have Been Up To
A quick update on what I have been up to since my last newsletter, since I have your attention:
I attended (sort of, between meetings) my first online conference, the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) annual conference. While I missed seeing colleagues across Canada in person, it was nice to see their faces and hear about their research. I appreciate the tremendous effort that conference organizers have made to keep our professional communities alive and thriving.
I had my first (distanced, masked) in-person meeting since last September. I discovered that dressing for work outside the home is a skill I will need to relearn. All of my pre-pandemic work clothes are unfamiliar to me at this point. And, to be frank, a bit snug.
And, the most exciting news of all: I got my second Covid vaccination! So grateful.
Until next time…
In my part of the world, this time of year means warm temperatures, stunning sunsets, and - ideally - time outside enjoying life. I plan to make the most of it and hope you do as well. Life is short.
Stay well, my colleagues. I look forward to seeing you next time.
PS. You are still reading? Awesome. I have a favour to ask. Can you please share Academia Made Easier with someone who you think might enjoy it? Thanks for helping to spread the word.
Loleen Berdahl, PhD: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time on Twitter and binge-watching television, and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of University Affair’s Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.