Reflecting on an academic career: associations between past mentoring investments and career benefits

ABSTRACT

Receiving mentoring is associated with lasting career benefits ; however, less is known about long-term career gains for mentors. A national sample of retired academics were surveyed to examine associations between past mentoring behaviors and current evaluations of their careers. Participants (N = 277) were on average 73.6 (SD = 6.2) years old with 34.9 (SD = 8.0) years of occupational tenure and 7.7 (SD = 5.8) years post-retirement. Structural equation modeling results demonstrated that having more protégés (β = .19, p = .024) and engaging in more mentoring behaviors (β = .18, p = .027) were associated with objective career achievements. However, mentoring behaviors, and not the number of protégés, were linked to subjective career achievements (β = .33, p < .001). While prior research demonstrates that mentors experience short-term benefits from mentoring, the present study’s findings suggest that mentors may also experience long-term objective and subjective career benefits.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• retired academics
• career satisfaction
• career success

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This works was supported by the NIH-National Institute of General Medical Sciences: [NIH-NIGMS BUILD UL1GM118976 and RL5GM118975 (T.C.), and TL4GM118977 (S.H.)].

Notes on contributors

Jordan Boeder

Jordan Boeder Ph.D. is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Zurich where he investigates how context shapes motivation development across the lifespan.

Veronica Fruiht

Veronica Fruiht Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Dominican University of California where she studies the positive developmental relationships of emerging adults.

Kevin Erikson

Kevin Erikson M.B.A. is a research assistant in the Positive Augmented Research & Development Laboratory at California State University Northridge.

Sarah Hwang

Sarah Hwang is a research assistant in the Positive Augmented Research & Development Laboratory at California State University Northridge.

Giovanna Blanco

Giovanna Blanco is a research assistant in the Positive Augmented Research & Development Laboratory at California State University Northridge.

Thomas Chan

Thomas Chan Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and head of the Positive Augmented Research & Development Laboratory in the Health Equity Research Education Center at California State University Northridge.