Formal mentorship programs typically involve faculty-student and senior faculty-junior faculty pairings to facilitate the academic and career performance of the mentees. They have taken on a myriad of formats at institutions throughout the universe. They’re popping up everywhere. The emphasis in most programs is on the mentor and the various roles he or she can play in fostering the development of the mentee.
What’s so special about the relationship between a mentor and mentee? After all, it’s just the pairing of a wiser, more experienced, sage-type professor with a newbie or less experienced, sageless junior faculty member or a student. The mentor’s primary function is to show the mentee the academic ropes, albeit the teaching, research, or clinical nuts and bolts—to serve as a human advisor-career version of CliffsNotes®.
WROOOONG! It’s a bit more complicated, like friend and romantic relationships. This blog dissects the relationship to reveal its most basic innards or components. Each relationship is unique.
Components of the Mentor-Mentee Relationship
There are at least six major components of each mentor-mentee relationship that make it different from every other mentoring relationship:
1. mentor’s role, which can be teacher, counselor, advisor, sponsor, resource, and/or advocate,
2. frequency of communication via face-to-face, e-mail, TM, and/or phone,
3. mentor’s expertise,
4. academic interests of the pair,
5. length of the relationship, and
6. chemistry of the relationship.
All of these factors contribute the uniqueness and success or failure of each relationship.
Among the components of the relationship, the one often overlooked in the pairing process is the personal chemistry. It is a critical determinant of the success of the relationship. My next blog will explore this component.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
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