are you my mentor?

If you are starting a career as an academic (even as a graduate student) you probably hear a lot about mentoring. As a graduate student, official mentoring is mostly automatic - you have a research supervisor who is supposed to mentor you through the progress of Ph.D. As a professor you might have less access to formal mentors (although institutions are increasingly starting formal mentorship programs for assistant professors), and be on your own to find unofficial ones. Tenure She Wrote has an excellent post here on toxic mentors.

Academic mentorship has been on my mind lately. First, I get a lot of interactions that start with my blog that indicate some readers see this as providing some loose mentorship (in the sense that I give advice and talk about experiences that are helpful). The truth is, I love when I get to give advice or my opinion/experience in a way that might help someone else (and I'm always open to questions and suggestions for posts). Second, I recently developed a new unofficial mentorship relationship that has focused on my ability to mentor others as an administrator. Third, I mentor a relatively high number of undergraduate and graduate students, and I am always trying to think of the best way to advise and teach them. I have recently received feedback that many more students than just my own see me as a mentor (!), which was news to me. It has occurred to me that one doesn't really get to decide if one is going to be a mentor, sometimes. Fourth, I am an academic who was the victim recipient of a (pilot) formal mentoring program upon hiring and I have relied extensively on unofficial mentors as an Assistant Professor. This post is about finding, keeping, and parting ways with unofficial mentors (though it's possible these can apply to formal mentors as well).

1. Keep your eyes peeled for potential unofficial mentors. I have found unofficial mentors in very unlikely places. I have mentors who are women, and mentors who are men. Some are only just ahead of me in terms of career stage, others are full professors and have been for quite some time. Some are also psychologists and some are in other departments or even at other institutions. I've stumbled upon most of them entirely by accident. It's hard to predict when you might trip over a potential mentor.

(Sidenote: In my experience, beware the formal mentorship program. These bring into play all kinds of elements that I think undermine true, open mentorship including an evaluative component (the program might ask you to evaluate it and your mentor), a power differential, lack of voluntary connections (i.e., the mentor was assigned to you), etc. In my experiences of now watching the mentorship program from behind the scenes, new faculty members are treated like a hot potato to be tossed about until someone is left having to look after them. This is hardly a recipe for a promising mentor-mentee connection).

2. Amass multiple unofficial mentors. With most experiences in life, don't put your eggs all in one basket. It is better to have multiple, and potentially contrasting, opinions rather than to only have one mentor to guide you. Mentors are busy people and might not always have time for you. Furthermore, they might not all have experiences that can help you. For example, while my unofficial mentors at other institutions can guide me through things such as publishing, they cannot help me with my department politics or the tenure and promotion guidelines at my institution, as they are unfamiliar with them. I recommend when you arrive at a new institution, you spend some time getting to know people - work your way through coffee or lunch with your colleagues, or even just stop to chat in the hall. Get to know them - they won't all be your mentors, but you never know when one might click.

3. Mentors do not need to know that they are mentors. There are probably fewer things more awkward than the "Will you be my mentor?" conversation. In my experiences, the "right" mentorship relationship evolved without having to be discussed. You can also receive mentoring from individuals who aren't even aware that you are observing them. For example, I have colleagues who do an excellent job of carving out time for their research. I have another colleague who always knows exactly what to say to diffuse any difficult or tense situation at a faculty meeting. By observing, I'm picking up these skills - regardless of whether I actually have a mentor-mentee relationship with them.

4. Bad mentors are helpful too. Learning what not to do is just as important as learning what to do, regardless of whether you are a graduate student or a faculty member. In addition to the colleagues mentioned in the last point, I have other colleagues who successfully demonstrate what not to do on a regular basis. Colleagues who cannot help but antagonize others, whom no one listens to, or who undermine their own progress. I've learned a lot from observing these individuals and noting what I don't want to do in my own career.

5. Be grateful. If there is one thing you can count on in academia, it's that everyone is very busy. There are always more tasks to be done and more work than any single person could accomplish in one work week. When you do find a mentorship relationship that works, and where you do have an informal connection, be grateful for it. Thank your mentor for their time, take them out for lunch once in a while. Buy them a nice bottle of wine when something they advised you on works out - and be sure to tell your other colleagues that they have been helpful. Unofficial mentors usually receive no recognition and are mentoring out of the goodness of their heart, the fact that they like you, or their own value system that believes in the importance of helping junior colleagues. Mentoring is rarely rewarded, and thus when we do it, we do it at the expense of progress we could be making on our own workload.

4. Grain of salt & check your facts. That being said, mentors might not know everything they appear to know. For example, a friend and I were recently discussing contradictory information/advice we each received from our (different) unofficial mentors). If I'm right, then this colleague needs to finish a task before they apply for tenure. If they're right, I've wasted time on a task I didn't need to do. The bottom line is that unless a mentor has gone through your exact experience relatively recently, they might not know the policy they are discussing. Check your facts. Never assume someone else is right. And "so and so told me so" is not going to work when you're putting together your case file for tenure or a grant application that is misguided and/or incorrect.

5. A mentor's word is not God's word. It is a personal fault of mine that I tend to place too much value on what my mentor tell me, and doubt my own instincts and desires. Ultimately, you probably know yourself best. You know your own work habits, personality, career goals, values, etc., much better than any mentor will know them. And your mentor will have his or her own work habits, personality, career goals, values, etc. A mentor's word is not God's word - you have the ultimate veto or decision making capability for your own career. Any good mentor should be able to give you advice but accept that you need to make your own decisions. A mentor who makes his or her advice contingent upon you following it 100% is probably not a good mentor after all (see #7).

6. Keep in mind that mentor and friend might not be synonymous. Although friends can give advice, mentors might not necessarily be friends. Asking someone to mentor you - officially or unofficially - gives that relationship a power differential (and you are on the bottom, in case this isn't clear). In my experience so far, it is very difficult to turn mentorship off and friendship on. Do not assume that your mentor will be your friend - and try not to be hurt if your mentoring connection ends when you have achieved what that mentor was helping you with (e.g., tenure) or you out grow their assistance. A mentor is probably not also a friend.

7. Remember that mentors have motivations too. Even mentors who are advising others mostly out of the goodness of their heart have motivations. Why do I mentor? Because I'd like to influence the "next generation" (even if that's only a few years behind me) of academics. I value lots of of things - teaching, non-abusive research supervision, self-care, mentoring, being a team player - that influence whom and how I mentor. I'm unlikely to want to mentor someone who is going to be self-centered, work only on research at the expense of our department, or who mistreats his or her graduate students. I want to mentor others to be like me. This might seem well-intentioned. But other professors mentor in order to create mini-Mes in a bad way - whether they realize it or not. Along with checking your facts and remembering that mentors aren't God, keep in mind that mentors have their own motivations as well.

8. Pay it forward. Academia lends itself to isolation - we're judgmental, we don't help others, we look after ourselves first. We have to do a lot of these things to protect our own time, careers, and mental health. But junior colleagues need mentorship - left to figure out academia by sheer trial and error, no one is going to do well. And Assistant Professors, in particular, don't really have time to spend a few years failing due to trial and error. Find those who are open to mentorship, who are grateful for it, and mentor them. Pay it forward if you've had a good mentor - and undo the damage of someone else, if you've had a bad one.