All Ireland Society for Higher Education
| Name: | Carey , Linda Joan |
|---|---|
| Email: | l.carey@qub.ac.uk |
| Institution: | Queen's University Belfast |
McGuinness, Carol, Prof c.mcguinness@qub.ac.uk Ennis, Madeleine, Prof m.ennis@qub.ac.uk
A number of universities and colleges have developed mentoring
schemes for staff, e.g. for probationary lecturers, contract
research staff, administrative staff (see, for example,
Damodaran, Gordon, and Runcie 2002 ). For the last three years,
the Queen's University Gender Initiative has organised a
voluntary mentoring scheme for female academic and research
staff to help them meet some of the challenges they face in
terms of career management, professional development and
work/life balance.
This paper provides an evaluation of the Queen's mentoring
scheme. The specific aims of the paper are to:
* identify what mentors and mentees in a higher education context
can learn and gain from engaging in a mentoring relationship;
* discuss the policy and changing practice implications of
introducing mentoring in a higher education institution;
* enable participants to reflect on the implications of the
findings of the evaluation for their own contexts.
* The evaluation is based on feedback from the first two
years of the programme. Data was gathered through focus
groups and questionnaires from mentees and mentors, women
who chose not to be involved in the scheme and Heads of
School. A number of strengths of the scheme are
highlighted, including: mentees' gains in confidence and
career planning; mentors' sense of being professionally
valued; and the importance of networking.
Policy and practice issues emerging from the evaluation will be
discussed, including: expanding the scheme to other target
groups, concerns about links between mentoring and appraisal; and
the importance of trust and confidentiality. Participants will be
encouraged to discuss the implications of these and other issues
for mentoring schemes in their own institutions.
(Abstract ref: #2.)