The book Adviser, Teacher, Role Model, Friend: On Being a Mentor to Students in Science and Engineering is an excellent primer on how to be an effective and ethical mentor to students. It highlights that being a mentor (or faculty advisor) is not a perk of professorship, where students handle menial tasks and serve to bolster a professor’s CV. Mentoring is a relationship of mutual respect and accomplishment. But there are far too many instances today of abuse happening in this relationship that should be prevented. How can the many positive aspects of mentorship be supported while defending against the unethical situations?
A large focus of the book is on the power imbalance between the mentor and mentee. This imbalance makes sense in a meritocracy, but the result of combining this with an unforgiving mindset is disastrous. The authors of this book recognized the dangers stemming from the mentor’s personal bias even back in 1997. Gender representation, family issues, sexual harassment, cultural differences, and disabilities are all noted here for the mentor to carefully examine as sources of both harmful bias and genuine misunderstanding. I am surprised that a serious publication like this one from over 20 years ago does not seem to be well understood even today. Perhaps this is because of today’s growing open discussion on the mentor-mentee relationship, shedding light on a real problem that was hushed about in the past. This new attention is the change that is needed to combat abuses of power or mismanagement of students, and forces the university to publicly respond. So after the PR statement, what should a university do?
I fully agree with the largest and most powerful recommendation given in the book, which prominently stands out as the only text of the chapter to be in bold (page 66):
“… we recommend that institutions incorporate mentoring and advising effectiveness in the criteria used for appraisals of faculty performance, including evaluations for the purposes of promotion and tenure.”
I think this type of accountability and focus on the mentorship of students is something that differentiates good colleges from others. It can be implemented on an institutional level where faculty can be evaluated based on the student’s perception them. It also serves as a great and direct reward to the professors who do put effort into mentoring students and respecting their work. It is also a great line of defense that prevents abuses of power that the mentor can have over the student. When institutions measure success through both the mentor and student, then both are driven to work towards accomplishments together. I do hope that more universities come to share my conviction on this. Good students are not produced from well-oiled assembly lines, they are made from personal respect and inspiration.
Hey, Patrick!
As a person who teaches research writing here, I’m especially appreciative of your reading suggestion, as I’d love to have readings to bolster discussions with my science and engineering students. While there of course still exists a dominating number of abuse cases with regards to mentor-mentee relationships, something else we should consider discussing are the incentives for advisors to mishandle their relationships with students. Is it the competitiveness? Lack of time? Lack of life balance? Notion of the status quo of the hierarchical relationship dynamics in academia? Inherent selfishness? Understanding incentives (in addition to taking measures of accountability, as, I agree, this step is incredibly important) could help universities better understand how to combat these issues.
Your thoughts here could lead into a whole book of great discussion on how to support mentors and mentees alike. All of those questions you have on the incentives are spot-on and actually showcase several that the university is directly in control over in the present! I also see that in an evolving group (such as professors at a university), these answers would have to be updated constantly in order to keep with the modern times and culture. I am afraid however that the world at large is not going to find a satisfying answer to all of these questions in my lifetime.
I enjoyed reading this. I share the same idea. I wish universities also take some actions in terms of encouraging mentorship culture, especially among international students. We leave our career back home and try to learn things here and sometime we need that mentor to guide us not to get lost.
How does the power imbalance between mentor and mentee impact the mentoring relationship, and why is this discussed as an important issue in this book?