Chapter 17: Increasing Cross-Campus Engagement: Understanding Student Athletes Through Faculty Mentorship

In a perfect world, all business entities and organizations comprised of different units would work together, communicate, and produce measurable results that correspond to the goals outlined in an organization’s mission. However, it is not uncommon for different units to work towards the same goal, but separately and without adequate communication. This method tends to make things unnecessarily difficult and creates invisible barriers and silos (Lencioni, 2006). Oftentimes, one can find an example of departments operating as separate entities on college and university campuses. This is particularly the case for intercollegiate athletic departments, which are frequently left out of the higher education picture. This creates the need for a bridge that connects the unit to the rest of campus. This chapter discusses how an athletics department within a public historically Black university used a grant to create a faculty mentoring program to breakdown silos, combat stereotype threat, and increase campus collaboration by using faculty to serve as a bridge between academia and athletics to fill the gap between them.