Collaborative Mentoring leads to Sustainability

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Presenter

Angelicque Tucker Blackmon, HBU PATHs (Innovative Learning Center, LLC)

Co-Presenters

Martha Escobar (Oakland University), Mohammed Qazi (Tuskegee University), John Barfield (Tennessee State University), Shaik Jeelani (Tuskegee University), Jerzy Leszczynski (Jackson State University), Frances Williams (Tennessee State University), Shonda Allen (Jackson State University), Carol Banks (Tuskegee University)

Abstract

The PATHs program was funded to change the tenure and promotion culture for underrepresented faculty in STEM departments. Its goal is to develop, implement, study, and evaluate a model to advance underrepresented minority faculty, also called Fellows, in the professoriate at HBCUs. In this interactive workshop, presenters will focus on one of the program model’s five critical parts–mentoring. Together, the PI and co-PIs function as a mentor. They are PIs with advanced academic rank at their institutions. They have the experience and university credibility to provide access to resources and initiate change beneficial to Fellows on the tenure track.

Collaborative mentoring is a leadership strategy that can be used to build and sustain a community of Fellows to prevent feelings of isolation that may surface while pursuing tenure. Collaborative mentoring and sustained community building require skills, intentionality, and time. In the PATHs program, Fellows were originally expected to establish collaborations on their own to counter feelings of personal and academic isolation. Leaders anticipated that Fellows would discuss concerns of interest to early-career faculty and provide general support for each other. However, although there were occasions when the community of Fellows flourished (like at Retreats and other meetings), Fellows were not proactively collaborating beyond the retreats.

Facilitated work sessions brought Fellows out of isolation into collaborative clusters generating rich dialogues. Although the program leadership initiated the joint meetings, Fellows took the process a step further to form collaborative teams amongst themselves. They began discussing ways in which their areas of expertise complemented each other. This generative discussion on the interdisciplinary nature of their research interests has spurred creative ideas. Fellows are embedding creative ideas into proposals for funding. The outcomes are peer-developed proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation.