Library Faculty Mentoring Program

Policies & Procedures

  1. Assignment of mentors will occur within the first 3 months of the mentee’s appointment as faculty.
  2. The University Librarian, in conjunction with the Executive Committee, will offer a choice of two senior faculty members as mentors to a junior faculty member for the first year. Efforts will be made to pair faculty members of the same track; however, capacity will determine pairing.
    1. The appointed mentor cannot be the mentee's department head.
    2. Professors can serve as mentors for assistant professors, associate professors, clinical assistant professors, clinical associate professors, instructors, or lecturers.
    3. Associate professors can serve as mentors for assistant professors, clinical assistant professors, instructors, or lecturers.
    4. Clinical professors can serve as mentors for clinical associate professors, clinical assistant professors, instructors, or lecturers.
    5. Senior instructors or lecturers can serve as mentors for instructors or lecturers.
  3. It is expected that senior faculty will accept mentoring as a responsibility and privilege of their rank. Should a senior faculty member not meet mentoring expectations based on evaluation and feedback, they will be asked to take on other service roles to support other senior faculty.
  4. Efforts will be made to assign mentors no more than two mentees at a time. If asked to have more than two mentees, the senior mentor will be offered a reduction of other responsibilities by EC.
  5. Additional informal mentorship relationships are encouraged when they present themselves and can co-exist as long as the assigned formal mentor relationship is also maintained.
  6. Neither a candidate’s liaison nor mentor may be on a candidate’s Evaluation of Librarianship Committee, but may be interviewed as part of the promotion and tenure process.
  7. To date, joint appointments held by library faculty are 0% appointments in other units and thus mentoring goes solely through the library. Should this change in the future (appointments greater than 0%), a single mentoring plan needs to be developed for faculty members with joint appointments, with the primary college being the college the faculty is listed under in Banner.

Length of dyad mentoring relationships

  1. It is assumed that the mentee will be assigned a different mentor at the end of the first year unless they request to continue with the first-year mentor.
  2. Subsequently, the dyad mentoring pairing is expected to be maintained until the promotion of the mentee on their appropriate track. However, either member of the pair may request to end the partnership with no consequences at any time.
  3. Mentees on instructor/lecturer track may withdraw from the mentoring program at the end of their first year of appointment.

The executive committee will ask a small number of associate professors to coordinate a collaborative support group. That group will convene quarterly meetings, which won't be mandatory and will be open to all associate professors and clinical associate professors. The chief purpose will be to debrief attendees on the promotion process and to discuss goals for next steps. The quarterly meetings may also invite full professors to share their experiences or may include a discussion topic or journal club on topics related to mid-career concerns for success in the Library profession and at the UL.

Scope:
  • Open invitation, not mandatory and need not attend every meeting,
  • Mutual encouragement and inspiration,
  • Seek clarification on what is required for promotion to full,
  • Invite full professors to share their experience.