Best Practices for Departmental Faculty Mentoring

Northwestern encourages departments to foster and promote best practices in mentoring. Departments can both cultivate informal mentoring practices and develop formal programs that foster promotion, retention and career success for all faculty.

Departments may consider the following practices as they work to support mentoring best practices:

Informal Mentoring

Develop a culture that models and champions informal mentoring practices, in which senior faculty members view mentoring as an opportunity to ensure the promotion and success of all faculty in the department.

Model informal mentoring as a valuable and expected component of senior-level leadership.
- Chairs can schedule regular lunches or meetings with early career faculty as a form of informal guidance and mentorship for their success.
Identify ways to lower barriers for faculty to engage in informal mentoring opportunities.
- Chairs can consider setting aside a small amount of discretionary funds to support the costs of meals for groups of senior and junior faculty.
- Actively encourage faculty attendance at department colloquia and other events, as these provide informal opportunities for faculty to build and strengthen networks with colleagues.
Designate departmental mentoring champions who, in addition to the chair, can help foster a culture of mentoring and/or lead the development or implementation of formal mentorship programs.
- This can help elevate the perceived importance and value of mentoring practices.
Recognize mentoring as service when distributing roles among faculty members in the department.
Encourage faculty familiarity with the Northwestern Foundational Principles of Mentoring Practice, Mentorship Resources , and Career Development programs offered by the Office of the Provost and by individuals schools.
Encourage faculty to complete mentoring training, such as the Advancing Mentoring Excellence series offered by the Office of the Provost.

Formal Mentoring Programs

Establish departmental guidelines for a formal mentoring program.

If possible, identify and deputize a mentoring champion in the department who can lead the design and planning of any formal mentoring programs.
Provide guidelines on roles and responsibilities of both the mentor and mentee.
- Define and clearly communicate the role that mentors play, if any, in the review and promotion process.
- Mentors should clarify expectations regarding confidentiality with their mentee, including relating to sharing information with the chair.
Determine whether the department will set requirements about how often the mentor and mentee meet.
Consider how the mentor and mentee will report on the mentoring relationship to the chair, department mentoring champion or associate dean, such as through written reports, annual meetings, surveys, etc.
Determine the expected duration for the relationship, and a mechanism to address unsuccessful relationships.
Determine how the department will assess the overall effectiveness of mentoring, such as surveying participants and examining data on retention and promotion.
Determine whether the department will offer single mentors or a team of mentees. Smaller departments unable to provide a team can instead consider encouraging informal mentoring and cultivating external mentors.
Depending on the size and makeup of the faculty, departments can consider offering formal mentoring to mid-career faculty as well as early career faculty.

Define Scope

Define and provide guidance on the potential scope of topics that a formal mentoring relationship might cover, such as:

Understanding milestones and requirements for advancement; preparing the evaluation for the third-year review for tenure or promotion; review of documents like curriculum vitae, annual reports and professional statements
Grant writing and grant management or publishing outlets and processes; feedback on manuscripts or proposals
Recruiting students to a research group and running an effective lab
Teaching-related challenges
Service roles
Making connections across campus and within the discipline
Wellbeing, including referral to resources for issues such as work/life balance