THEME 1: Defining Mentors

Interview participants were not directly asked to define a ‘mentor’ and/or a ‘mentee’ but in numerous cases a range of definitions or descriptions of the relationship arose during the discussion. Mentoring was discussed and included a range of possibilities, such as a one-to-one relationship, within peer groups and larger networks within the institution. However, participants most often discussed mentoring in the more traditional sense of a dyad, as mentor-mentee, especially in light of their understanding of what their departments and divisions are currently offering in this area.

Reciprocity: Comments from participants addressed a description of mentoring but raised a key theme: that engaging in mentoring is beneficial to both parties:

• “Mentoring is when reciprocal learning takes place” (Assoc Prof, TS, Life Sc, mentor)
• “Mentoring is a positive beneficial activity” (Assoc Prof, TS, Phys Sc, mentor)
• For a few mentors this reciprocity reinvigorated their own teaching as they were keen to share teaching activities and strategies with mentees. The mentors shared that there were too few other opportunities to engage in such teaching-specific discussions.

Coaching: While both mentors and mentees described the positive mutual benefits, several participants used the term ‘coach’ to describe some of the activities in their relationship:

• “A mentor is a coach; a mentor for life” (Full Prof, Phys Sc, Mentor)
• “Someone who knows where to connect you for what you need…coach on one hand who helps me find my way and on the other a clearinghouse who knows who to go to for what” (Assoc Prof, Life Sc, in mentor role).

Collegial relationships: Participants discussed one-to-one mentoring relationships and collegial interactions that offered ongoing and sustained support for both teaching-related and academic matters. The collegiality often occurred daily and these relations were described for both one-to-one and larger more networked activities: “Mentors are for high level issues. For day to day stuff you may not need an official mentor but a mentoring colleague.” (Assoc Prof, TS, Phys Sc, UTM)

Reasons to mentor: Mentors felt that they have much to offer (“after learning the ropes through the sink or swim method”) and would like to ensure new hires do not experience the challenges they faced when they started teaching. Many were fortunate to have experienced strong mentors for teaching either at the graduate student level or as a new faculty hire and saw the value of both giving back to others but also gaining benefits through the relationship.

Mentors who had experienced no early career mentoring were very supportive of mentoring relationships and valued the impact of sharing their insights through such matches. One participant stressed: “I’d like to make the academy a human place and we’d all enjoy it more based on my own bad experiences” (Assoc Prof, Life Sc, UTM). Another participant shared similar disappointment in early career mentoring:

My own experience had been to be just thrown into a class and I wanted to help those faculty with [similar situations] in their teaching. I think back on good teachers I had to guide my own mentoring… it’s nice to see people change. (Full Prof, Phys Sc, mentor)

Finally, a faculty member enjoyed sharing teaching experiences learned throughout their career, despite not having had a mentor: “I’d like to make someone’s teaching and life a bit better” (Assoc Prof, TS, Life Sc).

In a few other cases mentors had gained much from a positive mentoring experience and wanted to continue what they deemed as an important relationship, especially within a research intensive setting:

I had a fabulous experience during my degree [many years ago] and a faculty member in [named discipline] was really good at teaching and invited me to co-teach with her and we recorded every two hour class and then would meet in our reading course where we would talk about what was going on in that class. She was interested in group dynamics – she was a role model…she exposed me to looking at teaching and learning from the student’s perspective. Turning the paradigm on its head. Innovative in her teaching. Being exposed to this was very unusual at the time as teaching was done behind closed doors. (Full Prof, Soc Sc, TAM)

As noted previously, reciprocity was a positive element of many of the one-one to relationships as both parties benefitted via shared teaching practices and experiences with emerging technologies, pedagogies, and so forth. Participants mentioned that this shared learning journey served to further the mentor’s own professional development. In these cases the mentee was viewed as a colleague who had as much to share as they had to give.

Mentoring beyond teaching. While the focus of this study is on capturing mentoring for teaching approaches and experiences, it is important to note that a few participants contended that mentoring for teaching is too disjointed or segmented a view when describing the human relationships that develop. One Assistant Prof, TS, stated, “you are mentored to be a faculty member and not just a teacher – [it’s] hard to separate the two.” Tenured faculty mentors stressed that the demand to excel in three areas (research, teaching and service) means mentoring for teaching needs to be considered
as part of a holistic picture, as illustrated by the following instructor:

Nothing ever prepares you for being a professor… you can’t just talk about mentoring for research or teaching but how to handle all of this (research, teaching and service) because you have to think detailed in every one and then big picture and then juggle all of these, not just teaching. The whole big mountain is the problem – it is artificial to think of three parts. The reality is that we have mentors for different things. (Assoc Prof, Life Sc, mentor)

A second professor shared similar ideas and felt that, “A mentor is broader than teaching…it is both professional and personal” (Associate Prof, Med). These perspectives point to other project findings that describe multiple mentoring relationships that can meet varied needs in new and junior faculty, in both the teaching and tenure streams.