Shared wisdom: a collaborative autoethnography on mentorship and women supporting women in academia

ABSTRACT

In this collaborative autoethnography, three female professors sought to reflect on personal discoveries from their recent research examining the benefits of women supporting women in academia. The findings of their study indicated that women who are mentored and supported by other women in academia feel empowered to continue with this work despite the challenges they encounter. As educators, reflective thinking and writing are common practices we use to examine and enhance our teaching. Through this autoethnographic exploration, we self-reflected on the topic of this research and explored how we, as women in academia, benefit by being supported by other women and how we could take what we learned to support and mentor other women we encounter in this field.

KEYWORDS:

• Mentorship
• collaborative autoethnography
• women in academia
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).