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Mentoring

I've benefited from mentors my entire adult life. Knowing this I've tried to be open to mentoring others as a way of "paying it forward".

My best mentors were experts in communication, both in sharing operational wisdom but also hearing me, really hearing me, as I've talked through my strengths and weaknesses in different contexts. Mentors don't have to know that much more than me to help me.

I've been a research advisor to undergraduates almost my entire professional career. There have been times when I have enjoyed the editing of their work so much that I have thought of applying to edit professional journals, but I know that I would have to give up many things that I currently enjoy to do so. I dearly love the "light bulb over the head" experience of a student when they've been shown the path to a new concept, and I see that more in research advising than in teaching.

As I've become more senior (and in academia there aren't that many senior faculty, a scary thought, death, retirement, or administration) I've tried to be open to mentoring junior faculty. It has been programmatic in the twelve years I served as department chair or the six years I chaired our university's Curriculum Committee or it has been ad hoc with folk stopping by for advice on some nuts-and-bolts issues.

I am serving my third year as faculty ombudsperson, and though mentoring is not the primary component there is a good deal of talking through goals and how to achieve them.

In my career I do feel as if mentoring has been a currency that I and the people I work with exchange freely.

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