Faculty Mentoring and Professional Development
All faculty, no matter their discipline or career stage, deserve to have access to quality mentoring.
The School of Arts and Sciences has made a special commitment to this precept by initiating a comprehensive plan to provide arts and sciences faculty with a range of mentoring resources. While our initial focus is on serving pretenure faculty in the social sciences, humanities and creative arts, in the coming years our efforts will expand to the sciences and to offering mentoring resources to senior faculty across the school.
The centerpiece of our mentoring initiative is the Faculty Mentoring Program (FMP). Building on the success of our 2017-2018 pilot mentoring program, the FMP has now transitioned into a permanent program that provides pretenure faculty with dedicated mentors and access to other professional development resources that will foster their success and wellbeing here at Brandeis.
A Note from the Director of Faculty Mentoring
Everyone’s path towards tenure is unique, but it is not a journey that has to be made alone. My commitment to mentoring stems from this simple realization accompanied by another: the tenure process is too often shrouded in mystery. Building community, prioritizing our wellbeing, ensuring intellectual and professional growth, and demystifying tenure are foundational principles of my work as Director of Faculty Mentoring in the School of Arts and Sciences. Other key priorities of the FMP are to ensure the continued success of tenured faculty and to support community building among the growing number of tenure-track and long-term contract faculty of color at Brandeis across the School of Arts and Sciences, Heller, and IBS.
I am available to meet individually with faculty about the following:
- Third-Year Review Statements
- Tenure and Promotion Statements
- Book and Article Manuscript Proposals
- Organizing Book and Article Manuscript Workshops
- Navigating the University as a Faculty of Color
I am eager to hear from you about your experiences, needs, and how I can be of service to you. You can reach me via email.
Sincerely,
Ulka Anjaria
Director of Faculty Mentoring
Professor, English
request an appointment with ULKA by email
The Components of the Faculty Mentoring Program
Close-Knit Mentorship
Designed to bolster the current system of departmental mentorship, program participants are placed in small cohorts and paired with a dedicated faculty mentor outside of their department. In addition to individual meetings with your dedicated faculty mentor, we hold semimonthly cohort-wide discussions and workshops that cover relevant professional development topics during the first year of the program. The second year of the program is more loosely structured, and participant driven. Cohort meetings have the added benefit of fostering community building among FMP participants.
Faculty Success Program
Supported by Norman Funds, which pretenure faculty can apply for on an annual basis, or by annually allocated Tomberg Research Funds, FMP participants are encouraged to enroll in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity’s (NCFDD) Faculty Success Program (FSP). This virtual boot camp has drawn national attention for providing concrete advice, strategies, and resources for junior faculty as they enter the professoriate and navigate towards tenure. You can also read more about the FSP. Through Brandeis’s NCFDD institutional membership, all faculty have free access to the Center’s impressive array of on-line resources.
Claim your Brandeis-sponsored NCFDD membership
Book and Article Manuscript Workshop
Norman Funds and logistical support for a book manuscript workshop are available to all FMP participants in book fields. These workshops convene up to four specialists to discuss a full draft of a completed book manuscript. Norman Funds and logistical support for an article manuscript workshop are also available to FMP participants in article fields. These workshops convene 1-2 specialists to discuss a full draft of a completed article manuscript that is targeted for publication in a top journal. In addition to advancing pretenure faculty members’ scholarship in important and meaningful ways, not least towards tenure, these workshops also serve ancillary benefits of expanding professional opportunities and networks at a crucial career stage. Applications for Norman funds should be submitted ahead of the projected workshop date.
In order to learn more about and/or schedule a manuscript or article workshop, please contact Ulka Anjaria, Director of Faculty Mentoring.
Planning a Pretenure Faculty Book Manuscript Workshop