From Nothing to Something: The Nuts and Bolts of Building a Mentoring Program in a Health Sciences College

Abstract

In this paper, I report the development of a mentoring program in a College of Health Sciences comprised of schools of nursing, pharmacy, and health professions (which include physical therapy, speech pathology and audiology, applied psychology, and physician assistant programs) at a large private university. Although university-wide mentoring programs were in existence, no college-specific mentoring program was in place to address the professional development needs of the diverse tenure-track and non-tenure-track clinical faculty. In this manuscript, I highlight the importance of mentoring, identify issues specific to institutions with both tenure-track and non-tenure track faculty, and describe the building blocks of a mentoring program four years in the making. Year-by-year program components and evaluation data are included. The importance of faculty mentoring for professional development and academic success is emphasized.

Keywords:

• mentoring
• academic success
• faculty
• professional development

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the following individuals who contributed to the development of the program: Dean Terry Fulmer, Dean Jack Reynolds, Vice Provost Mary Loeffelholz, Jan Rinehart, Kathleen Kenney, Margarita DiVall, and Jason Lancaster.