Mentoring program: signups open!

Helen De Cruz (Oxford Brookes) and I are happy to announce that signups are open for this year's iteration of our Job-Market Mentoring Program. We plan to run signups through August, and hope to match as many job-candidates in need with mentors. Also, thanks to the feedback we received on this year's program, we are going to experiment with something new. In cases where we are unable to find a suitable mentor (as we always have more candidates in need than mentors available), our signup process will give mentees the option to sign up to be matched with another mentee for peer-support.  

Anyway, for those of you new to the program, here are the details:

Project Description

This project aims to complement The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy by providing academic job-market mentoring to all those in need regardless of background who cannot utilize the Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy. The aim of this mentoring project is just what it sounds like: a scheme to enable job candidates in philosophy who face special challenges, including those with little access to mentoring (e.g., because their department or advisor does not offer this), to receive advice and support from more experienced members of the profession.

Project Details:

1. Prospective mentors and mentees are invited to sign up on our survey.
2. Since this is a job market mentoring project, mentees need to be ABDs or PhDs in philosophy. The scheme will be open to all job candidates in philosophy, from every background, regardless of geographic location, gender, age, social identity, political orientation, etc.
3. Although the program is open to candidates of any gender, we encourage women candidates to approach The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy first, as our program is intended to complement rather than compete with that program.
4. Although we will do our best to accommodate all candidates in need, the program will prioritize candidates with special job-market challenges--for example, bi, gay, and trans* candidates, candidates with disabilities, non-white (non-female) candidates, as well as candidates of any background or social identity who have inadequate access to job-market mentoring (e.g., candidates lacking access to their grad program’s placement director or otherwise lacking adequate mentoring).
5. Provided we can find a suitable match, we will match mentees with mentors who are either tenure-track or tenured professors. Participants this year will also be able to sign up to be matched with another willing mentee, should no mentor be available.
6. The details of the mentoring relationship are expected to be worked out between the mentors/mentees.
7. However, in order not to overburden mentors and to follow best practices, people who enroll in this program would commit to the following:

• Mentees are encouraged to clearly discuss with their mentor at the beginning of the mentoring relationship a clear picture (and perhaps rough time-table) of the kind(s) of mentoring they are looking for. On the same note, mentees should also not be afraid to clarify precisely what kind of mentoring help they are looking for!
• Mentees who are matched with mentors are expected to use their mentor. Mentors should let us know if their mentee is not participating, so that we can pair the mentor with a mentee who will.
• Standardly, the mentor commits to the mentoring for one job season only (i.e., until next summer) (this can be extended by mutual agreement, but the mentor should not feel pressure to do so).
• Everything that mentors and mentees discuss is strictly confidential, will not be discussed with anybody outside the mentoring agreemen
• If there is any potential conflict of interest (see Mentor-Mentee Guidelines on the program website), it is in the best interest of mentor and mentee to let the organizers (Helen & Marcus) know at the earliest possible date, to discuss an appropriate resolution.

Crucially, in order for the program to work--and to help as many candidates in need as we can--we need mentors with tenure stream (i.e. tenure-track or tenured) jobs to sign up. Accordingly, Helen and I would like to encourage readers to reach out to any tenure-stream faculty you know and share the details of our program, as well as the feedback we received from this year's mentors and mentees. We want to help as many candidates in need as we can!

Comments

[Instructor Gadget]

I misunderstood the earlier post about this and did the survey/sign up in May. Would you recommend signing up again? Or were early attempts registered and kept. Thanks!

[Helen De Cruz]

Dear instructor gadget, alas I deleted all the responses as Marcus and I were tinkering with the survey and submitting dummy responses. Could you fill out a fresh form? Thank you.

[Instructor Gadget]

Yep. Thanks for letting me know.

[Anonymous Post-doc]

Hey, I signed up - should I have received a confirmation email?

[Marcus Arvan]

Anonymous Post-doc: I don't believe there is any confirmation email - but anyone who signs up should feel free to contact us at any time to make sure or find out where we are at in terms of being able to match them!

On that note, I want to note that it can take a bit of time for us to make matches - so if you sign up and days or weeks go by, rest assured: we have *not* forgotten about you! Sometimes, it just takes some time for us to get more mentors to sign up before we can match you.

[EC]

Thank you for this initiative! Are you still running the mentorship programme?