Why gerontology and geriatrics can teach us a lot about mentoring

ABSTRACT

Gerontology, geriatrics, and mentoring have a lot in common. The prototype of this role was Mentor, an older adult in Homer’s The Odyssey, who was enlisted to look after Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, while his father was away fighting the Trojan War. Portrayed as an older man, the name “mentor” literally means “a man who thinks,” which is not a bad characterization generally for faculty members in gerontology! In particular, gerontological and geriatrics education can teach us a lot about the importance of mentoring and provide some critical insights into this role: (1) the importance of interprofessional leadership and modeling, (2) the application of the concept of “grand-generativity” to mentoring, (3) “it takes a community” to be effective in mentoring others, and (4) the need to tailor mentorship styles to the person and the situation. This discussion explores these topics and argues that gerontological and geriatrics educators have a particularly important role and responsibility in mentoring students, colleagues, and administrators related to the very future of our field.

KEYWORDS:

• Mentoring
• higher education
• academic gerontology
• geriatrics education

Acknowledgments

Presented as the Hiram Friedsam Mentorship Award Lecture at the 44^th Annual Meeting and Leadership Conference, Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE), March 3, 2018, Atlanta, Georgia. The author would like to thank AGHE for this recognition of his mentoring and those students, faculty, and administrators who nominated him for the award. In addition, he would like to recognize the many mentors who have influenced his career development, particularly Donald Spence at the University of Rhode Island, who served as president of AGHE during 1982–83. Finally, the author would like to acknowledge the helpful suggestions of two anonymous reviewers.