By: Morgan Rooney
Whether you are pursuing your Master’s or PhD, actively searching for an academic job, or just settling into your shiny new faculty position, the early career of the aspiring teacher-scholar can be a bewildering experience. What are my professors’ expectations? How does one survive comprehensive exams or write 300 pages on one topic anyway? What professional development options are out there, and what specific options should aspiring teacher-scholars in my field pursue? What conferences should I attend, and what are the peer-reviewed journals and presses that I should court or shun?
Looking back, I see now that I never would have completed my doctorate or developed the CV I have now without the support of the mentors in my life. Undoubtedly, my professors were a crucial cog in that mentoring network; in particular, my supervisor was instrumental in advising me on issues such as the overall shape of my dissertation project, the conference venues, journals and presses I ought to target, and the job application process. Equally important, however, were the contributions of peers who volunteered their time and energy to mentor me, with no expectation of any return whatsoever. That spirit of collegial giving, of a disinterested commitment to a shared enterprise of learning and scholarship, is and always has been what makes academia so appealing for me.
At each stage of my doctorate – course work, comprehensive exams, and dissertation proposal, writing and defence – I leaned on the experience of peers who had recently climbed the mountain I was about to attempt. Among my fellow graduate students and conference attendees, I developed a network of peers who mentored me on a range of issues, from delivering papers to getting published to surviving the on-campus interview. I recall vividly, for instance, spending three hours on the phone with one such valued colleague the week before I had my first interview for an academic post. One runs out of encomiums for such people who donate their time, knowledge and support so freely.
One of the amazing outcomes of undergoing such experiences, above and beyond the completion of this or that specific daunting task, is the way mentoring becomes ingrained in your system. As I passed through each stage, I progressed, slowly but surely, from anxious mentee to wily veteran mentor. Not only did I feel that I had an obligation to provide the same level of support I had received, but I was convinced of its value, and I actively sought out avenues that would allow me to act on that conviction. Participating in my department’s Graduate Student Association was particularly rewarding in that sense, as it afforded me the opportunity to spearhead such mentoring initiatives. That same commitment to mentoring underwrites, too, my sense of myself as a teacher-scholar and administrator today.
A few years after competing my PhD, I now find myself working as an Educational Developer, where one of my main tasks is to oversee the Mentor Program. Funded by the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs and affiliated with select departments, the Mentor Program institutionalizes the kinds of relationships that most graduate students are traditionally left to stumble around in search of on their own. Tapping into their years of experience and knowledge of the institution and their discipline, the mentors are a source of knowledge and advice, helping TAs excel in their role and develop professional and teaching portfolios.
If your department is participating in the program, you owe it to yourself take advantage of this invaluable resource. All the survival guides in the world won’t serve you nearly as well as the advice and guidance of the people who are one step ahead of you on the same path, who remember the help they received from their mentors, and who in that spirit of disinterested collegiality are anxious to begin paying back that debt.