Mutual Mentoring Program (AS&E)

The Mutual Mentoring Program for faculty in the Schools of Arts and Sciences, and Engineering, aims to create a community of practice that centers the experiences of faculty of color and recognizes the contributions and unique challenges they face working at predominantly white institutions of higher education. 

Participants must be faculty located on Tufts University Medford/Somerville campus who are at the rank of Associate and Assistant Professor.

Mutual mentoring, by which faculty locate and depend on several different mentors throughout their careers, has been found to help faculty members gain the confidence and support to thrive in their academic careers. 

Participants will gain tools and resources to establish mutual mentoring networks to meet their needs. The program will run for one calendar year, beginning in January and running through December. Each participant will:

• Have access of up to $1,200 during the year for efforts to enhance mentoring.
• Attend monthly meetings to discuss pressing issues related to promotion, tenure and faculty success.
• Complete an action plan for how indicating the ways they will enhance their mentoring network and the outcomes they hope to achieve by the end of the program

In the program, participants can choose to focus on any of the key areas: 

• Getting to Know the Institution
• Excelling at Teaching
• Excelling at Research
• Understanding the Tenure and Promotion Process
• Developing Professional Networks
• Creating Work/Life Balance
• Creating Inclusive Communities.

In a mutual mentoring network, the protégé might pursue a mentoring relationship with a senior academic in their field, a peer in a similar position at another university, and/or an administrator in a role that they hope to perform one day. It offers a flexible model for mentoring that does not assume a one mentor/one mentee relationship in which the mentor must have all the expertise to guide their protégé through what may be a diverse and wide-ranging career path. 

Mutual mentoring is not a replacement for departmental mentoring but rather a supplementary source to increase the number of mentors that a faculty member can reach out to for support and guidance. 

Applications will be available in Fall 2023.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Ryan Rideau via email (Ryan.Rideau@tufts.edu)