Abstract
This chapter promotes the idea that retired academic staff members represent an excellent source of external mentors for postgraduate research students. PhD candidates, particularly those from international backgrounds, face an isolating experience at the outset of their studies. Having a mentor outside the formal supervisory arrangements could positively alter their trajectory. Retired academics have the flexibility to contribute to their institutions, assisting yet another PhD candidate achieve success. The mentor is outside the supervisory team and must respect boundaries around the supervisory team / research student relationship. Part of the chapter is a case study discussing the unexpected outcomes of the involvement of a retired academic staff member and an international postgraduate research student, of non-English speaking background, in a program to develop language skills at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Matching of the two participants meant that they had many interests in common and an effective working relationship developed quickly into a mentor/mentee dyad.
TopIntroduction
Mentoring in Higher Education
There has been a great deal published about mentoring programs in higher education. There is a large taxonomy of relevant mentoring programs: peer-to-peer mentoring, perhaps involving senior students as mentors and junior students as mentees (Chehayeb et al., 2022; Maccabe & Fonseca, 2021; Stigmar, 2016) and also peer-to-peer mentoring involving fellow doctoral students (Ayoobzadeh, 2023), alumni-to-student mentoring (Vieregger & Bryant, 2020; Dollinger et al., 2019), staff member-to-staff member mentoring (Akama & Keenan, 2023; Fitzgerald & McNamara, 2021; Darwin & Palmer, 2009; Thomas et al., 2015), and experts from industry mentoring students (St-Jean et al., 2017; Ramanan et al., 2006; Okolie et al. 2020), as some examples.
The purpose of these mentoring programs is usually career-oriented: helping with completing a course; giving some ideas about working in an industry. As well as the career-oriented assistance, there are psychosocial benefits such as support through a difficult episode; building confidence about success in studies; or giving insights into the positive aspects of working in a particular industry (Johnson, 2016). Each mentoring dyad, mentor and mentee, is unique and clearly benefits of the relationship will be greater if the participants have met several times and have established an atmosphere of trust in both directions. Having a ‘safe environment’ is conducive to open and frank discussion (Treasure et al., 2022). The focus of mentoring is supporting the mentee but there are significant benefits for the mentor (Boeder et al., 2021), otherwise it would be difficult to recruit volunteers to contribute to mentoring programs.
There have been reports in the literature about retired / emeritus academic staff serving as mentors in their former higher education institutions. A Canadian paper discusses various roles that emeritus faculty might take on campus including mentoring junior academic staff (Hirst & LeNavenec, 2022). There is also a recent report on the Increasing Minority Presence within Academia through Continuous Training (IMPACT) program in which emeritus faculty were matched with underrepresented minority faculty in engineering (Mendez et al., 2019a; Mendez et al., 2019b).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Mentor: A mentor is a person who provides guidance, advice, and support to a less experienced individual over a substantial period of time. Mentorships often arise in professional or educational settings, and may be part of a formal program or may occur informally between colleagues. Typically, the mentor shares their knowledge and expertise to help the mentee develop and succeed.
Higher Degree by Research: A higher degree by research in Australia means an academic program where the assessable content by research represents more than two-thirds of the total assessable content. This terminology covers PhD programs and Masters by Research (as opposed to coursework programs). Students / candidates enrolled in such programs are sometimes called HDR students or postgraduate research students.
Mentee: A mentee is someone who seeks guidance, support, and learning from a more experienced individual, known as a mentor. The mentor-mentee dyadic relationship involves sharing knowledge, skills, and insights to help the mentee grow personally and professionally. Whether in academia, career development, or personal growth, the mentor-mentee relationship fosters mutual growth and development.
Safe Environment: A safe environment is critical to the promotion of full and frank discussion between a mentor and mentee. Safe here does not relate at all to the physical environment but means that there is no judgement and open discussion can thrive. Ideas and opinions can be raised and discussed productively without any negative outcomes.
Public Narrative: Public Narrative is a powerful leadership development practice that enables individuals to inspire others and mobilize action around a shared purpose. Developed by Marshall Ganz, public narrative involves the art of storytelling to connect values with emotional resources for action .
Faculty: Surprisingly, there is not universal agreement on the meaning of this term. In some countries, faculty is used to collectively refer to the academic staff of an institution and in other countries faculty is used to describe an organizational unit in a higher education institution eg Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science.
Emeritus Status: Emeritus professor is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of full professor in Australia and other countries, having served with distinction over a considerable period of time. Typically, they have contributed significantly to their field of study and the higher education institution. In other contexts, the term emeritus can be used to describe any retired academic staff member.
Supervisor / Advisor: These terms are used to describe the academic staff member(s) appointed by the higher education institution to guide the postgraduate research student to successful completion of their course. Supervisor is the typical term in Australia but advisor is commonly used in the United States. As discussed in the text, in the best possible case, supervisors can be mentors but it is not necessarily so.