4: Three Ds on Mentoring: Different Experiences, Different Stages, and Different Disciplines

Mentoring on university campuses is indeed a very popular concept. Mentoring is often mentioned as the policy solution for increased standards and retention of both faculty and students (Colley, 2002). Frequently, new faculty are either assigned mentors or asked to seek out mentors. Student mentoring programs have also become major initiatives at the university level. There is a National Mentoring Summit (MENTOR, 2015), and even a National Mentoring Month toolkit (2015). A brief search reveals that the Internet is replete with many websites, blogs, conferences, and tools devoted to mentoring (e.g., Mentoring, 2015; Mentoring Institute, 2015; ProfHacker, 2014). There are also a number of recent books such as W. Brad Johnson’s On Being a Mentor: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty (2015); Susan L. Phillips and Susan T. Dennison’s Faculty Mentoring: A Practical Manual for Mentors, Mentees, Administrators, and Faculty Developers (2015); and Dwayne Mack, Elwood D. Watson, and Michelle Madsen Camacho’s edited book on Mentoring Faculty of Color: Essays on Professional Development and Advancement in Colleges and Universities (2012). It seems that everyone has something to say about the word mentor, whether it is a noun or a verb (Ferriss, 2014).