Tomorrow's Professor Blog

Folks:

The posting below provides a very interesting account of a new (for academia) approach to assessing job candidates for top level university positions. It is by two participants in the processes, Dr. John Holm who just retired as Director of International Programs at Cleveland State University, and Professor Cliff Studman who recently completed a contract as Director of Research and Development at the University of Botswana, and is currently consulting on research Management. At the time of this posting neither one of them knows who the University plans to appoint.

Regards,

Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: Digital Libraries, How do You Get Students to Use Them?

Tomorrow’s Academic Careers

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ASSESSING MANAGEMENT SKILLS OF JOB CANDIDATES: A PRIVATE SECTOR APPROACH

John D. Holm and Cliff Studman

The tenure of many top academic administrators is amazingly short. Business deans are a good example with an average tenure of two years. A major cause of the problem is that we have few tools in the search process to evaluate management skills.

Management skills encompass a variety of dimensions: How effective are the candidates at distilling “in-box” information into addressable issues? How effective are they in leading discussions on policy issues, or at participating in discussions? How effective are they in mobilizing external stakeholders? How effective are they interpersonally in a conflict situation? And, can they formulate a clear action plan? All these dimensions are important in determining whether competent academics make good administrators. Academics for the most part do not need management skills. Thus, it is most important that the search process include a serious probing of necessary management skills.

This summer we had a chance to experience one solution to assessing management skills in the hiring process. We both interviewed for a position at the University of Botswana(UB). The interview took three days. The first two were at an “Assessment Center.” The Center’s function was to test for management skills of potential job candidates. The final day was a standard interview with the search committee. The American co-author of this article had never heard of an “Assessment Center?” He decided to research the concept. A business dean friend explained it was a method of interviewing applicants where management skills were assessed. Multi-national corporations had developed the approach in the seventies. The dean had no knowledge of its use at a university. A quick search of the Chronicle and Google turned up no additional information.

The Assessment Center did provide a brief written introduction. The first day included “in-basket” exercises, a meeting with the Vice-Chancellor (the President in the USA), a competency based interview, and a written exercise. The second day entailed a policy discussion, a performance management problem, a presentation, and a debriefing. At some point there would be a “surprise element.” The Center’s hand-out stated our performance would be judged by two “trained” assessors whose judgments had proved “four times more accurate” in “predicting future performance” than the “standard interview”.

The Center was in four rooms at a hotel near the university. We started at 8:30AM in the main room that held three computers. There was one for each of us being assessed. Most surprising was that the person at the computer next to us (namely the other co-author of this piece) was the other candidate for the job for which we were interviewing.

The first exercise, the “in-basket”, concerned twelve written items (letters, emails, and a budget). All the items dealt with current issues facing the UB administration. The task was to analyze the twelve, identify the key issues, and then briefly flesh out an action plan. Next, we wrote several memoranda using the information from the in-basket to respond to particular action requests. In effect, the in-basket exercises forced us to respond to real UB problems playing out in practical, if made-up, situations. The second half of our morning was taken up with the “surprise element”. A group of radical students had taken the Vice-Chancellor hostage in his office. Each of us was alone in a room with someone acting as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (i.e. Provost in the USA). He gave us a certain number of facts orally. We then asked for additional facts (testing ability to elicit relevant information). We then made action recommendations to the DVC. Finally, the DVC gave us several additional facts and asked whether we wanted to amend our initial plan of action.

After lunch came the competency-based interview. It was fairly standard. The interviewer requested that we give at least one example of where we had demonstrated various managerial abilities and situation in which we had failed to do so.

The next exercise was most challenging. The head of the Assessment Center provided us with an analysis two UB faculty had written arguing that the university was failing to become internationally competitive. On the basis of the authors’ analysis, we were to draft a development plan for the office we were seeking to head. The plan was to include: strategic action plan for each objective, relevant external and internal stake- holders, and a communication strategy. We had from 4PM till 8:30AM the next day to finish plan! Both of us produced a six-page, single-spaced document. When one of us was asked at his interview with the Search Committee (the third day) to provide a vision for our job, he handed the members a typed copy of the development plan statement given to the Assessment Center the previous day.

The second day was as demanding as the first. It went from 8:30AM to 4PM, with an hour for lunch. First was a “policy group” exercise. Both of us participated in three discussions along with a candidate for another UB position. Each of us led a discussion on a different policy issue. One, for example, concerned limiting accumulation of faculty vacation leave. The leader was to encourage both a diversity of ideas and a consensus recommendation. We were judged both as participants and discussion leaders.

For the rest of day we proceeded individually, starting with a “managing performance” exercise. It had two parts. First we received four memoranda related to an employee causing conflict in the computer information unit. We wrote a formal letter to the person regarding what would happen if the behavior continued. Second, a few minutes after we had submitted the letter, the employee came into the exercise room to dispute the interpretations in our letter and to threaten to file a complaint with the union. Our objective in a half hour was both to persuade the worker not go to the union and to obtain a commitment for changed behavior.

After the lunch break, we returned for the final exercise, presenting to an external stakeholder. Our task was to make a pitch for Ministry of Education financial support as the university moved from total government financing to securing tuition and private sector support. We were given a briefing paper and half an hour to prepare. Then, a top finance official at the Ministry of Education walked into the room to engage us in a discussion. A member of the Assessment Center was also present. We made a fifteen-minute talk; then the Ministry of Education official grilled us with questions, which were very well informed.

The debriefing was straightforward. Two assessors would evaluate and grade our performance on each exercise. The Center would provide a written report to the university in two weeks. If we wanted to see the report, we should request a copy from UB. Our reactions to the process are as follows:

1) The exercises required real concentration. There was a mass of detail to absorb. Quick and analytical responses were required.

2) While it was not exactly like being at the office, we both had the feeling we were behaving much like we did in our real offices.

3) The amount of information produced requires substantial time to analyze unless the assessors are sophisticated. We doubt “trained” assessors can do as well as experienced administrators.

4) The cost had to be considerable: four staff; four “actors” who played roles in two exercises; four hotel rooms; and staff time for analysis and write-up.

Because of the time and cost factors, most American universities will be hesitant to set up an Assessment Center. However, for upper-level administrators like deans and vice presidents, this approach should pay off. Skilled, top-level managers have a major impact on a large organization in terms of efficiency, mobilizing staff, channeling conflict to productive outcomes, and recruiting external partners. The problems finding good managers at the dean’s level are particularly serious. Thus, the investment at this level will pay big dividends. Moreover, the presence of a cadre of skilled mangers at the dean level should provide better role models for academics further down the ladder.

Care should be taken in selecting a company to set up an Assessment Center. Management skills are not the same for the university as for the private sector. There must be sensitivity to the diffuse authority structure of academia. This means assessing candidates’ abilities to facilitate intense debate, to delegate responsibility, and to encourage consensus. Also, we concluded on the basis of our Botswana experience that the assessors should be experienced and effective academic administrators. Assessors who are “trained” to use a check-list to report the presence or absence of certain behaviors are likely not to catch the impact of various combinations of management skills. Seasoned managers are more likely to recognize a good manager or a person with potential. We also expect that such assessors could write up their conclusions immediately upon completing their observation.

Over the last half-century universities have changed from being small collections of scholars and students to large, complex bureaucracies. A new leadership is required, one that has both scholarly and managerial abilities. Only persons with the latter skills will be able to insure that bureaucracy sustains the scholarly mission. We believe that the Assessment Center approach, which some of the world’s best corporations use to hire top managers, should be considered as an essential component in the academic search process.

Folks:

The posting below looks at the steps required for building an administrative portfolio. It is from Chapter 8, Building the Administrative Portfolio, in The Administrative Portfolio; A Practical Guide to Improved Administrative Performance and Personnel Decisions, by Peter Seldin, Lubin School of Business, Pace University, Pleasantville, NY and Mary Lou Higgerson, Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio. ISBN 1-882982-47-9, Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 176 Ballville Road, P.O. Box 249, Bolton, MA 01740-0249 US. [www.ankerpub.com]. Copyright © 2002 by Anker Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: Quality and Performance Excellence in Higher Education

Tomorrow’s Academic Careers

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BUILDING THE ADMINISTRATIVE PORTFOLIO

In the preceding chapters, the writers describe what an administrative portfolio is, why and how it can be useful, and delineate the basic ingredients required to create one. This chapter details the process of building an administrative portfolio.

Step 1. Determine the Purpose for Building an Administrative Portfolio

The task of building an administrative portfolio will progress more smoothly if the administrator begins by reflecting on the purpose and audience for the portfolio. Why compile a portfolio? Will it serve as a means to evaluate and improve performance in the administrator’s current position? Will it be used as part of a formal performance appraisal? Will the portfolio to be used to seek another position? Is the administrator preparing the portfolio to leave a written legacy to benefit others who will assume similar responsibilities? The administrator may intend for the portfolio to serve multiple purposes, but it will be important to distinguish between primary and secondary purposes because the priorities for building a portfolio are likely to influence decisions about its content.

Step 2. Identify the Anticipated Readers of the Portfolio

Once the purpose for preparing a portfolio is clear in the administrator’s mind, it should be relatively easy to identify the anticipated readers (self? supervisor? prospective employer? review committee? search committee?). The list of anticipated readers will inform decisions about how best to structure and draft the portfolio narrative. For example, if the sole purpose is self-reflection to further improve job performance, the administrator can abbreviate the explanation of position responsibilities that would be needed if the portfolio were to be read by someone who is less familiar with the administrator’s current responsibilities. If the portfolio will be used to support a job application, the content needs to include description sufficient for readers who have no familiarity with the administrator’s current position and duties. It will be useful to keep the anticipated readers in mind as the administrator moves through the portfolio building process and makes decisions about its content.

Step 3. Develop the Table of Contents for the Administrative Portfolio

It is helpful to develop the overall plan for the portfolio before the administrator begins to write. In Chapter Six of this text, the writers provide some suggestions on what the table of contents might look like for an administrative portfolio compiled for the purpose of evaluation, and how the table of contents might be altered to prepare a portfolio for improvement. The administrator is not bound to use either of these models. Rather, the specific table of contents included in the administrative portfolio should be unique to the administrator and the purpose of building the portfolio. For example, if the administrator is building a portfolio for improvement but also wants the reflective process inherent in portfolio writing to help assess the best job fit, the administrator may want to add a section that details those aspects of the administrator’s current position which are enjoyable and comfortable and those which the administrator finds extremely uncomfortable to perform. Conceptualize the table of contents as a road map that directs the reader in discovering who the administrator is and why the administrator functions as he or she does in the position.

Step 4. Write the Basic Portfolio Information

The portfolio should include certain basic information even though the actual presentation of this information will vary from one portfolio to another. The administrator’s portfolio should include an introduction, a summary of administrative responsibilities, and a description of the administrator’s approach to administration. These three components typically become the first three sections of the portfolio.

The introduction describes the purpose of the portfolio (improvement? personnel decisions? grant? seek employment? legacy?), the institutional context (size, mission, campus culture, public or private), and the administrative unit directed by the administrator (department? division? college? institution?). The overall length of the introduction is usually no more than three or four paragraphs.

The summary of administrative responsibilities should read like an operational position description. It should be more than a list of what the administrator does in that the statement of administrative responsibilities should provide a sense of the breadth and complexity of the administrator’s current duties. For example, rather than merely listing a task force that the administrator chairs, offer a brief description of the responsibility that allows the reader to assess the magnitude of the activity (e.g., chair campus-wide task force appointed by the president). Similarly, if the administrator spends a significant amount of time nurturing untenured faculty, describe the magnitude of this responsibility by giving the number of untenured faculty currently mentored and providing specific examples that illustrate the type of professional coaching offered.

It is helpful to organize the summary of administrative responsibilities so that the reader can easily grasp the magnitude and complexity of each administrative duty. If, for example, the bulk of the administrator’s time is spent on personnel matters because the administrator chairs a department of 40 full-time and dozens of part-time faculty, then the personnel responsibilities of the administrator’s position should be listed first. If during recent years a significant portion of the administrator’s time has been directed toward fundraising and development activities, give this responsibility a more prominent placement in the summary statement.

Do not limit the administrator’s summary to tasks included on the generic position description included in the institution’s policy manual if the assigned responsibilities have changed or expanded beyond those listed. Typically individuals who are very skilled at their job take on more responsibilities than the duties listed in initial position description. One advantage of preparing an administrative portfolio is to illustrate how a particular position has evolved to encompass new responsibilities. The summary should also include any agreement, formal or informal, that the administrator may have made with the supervisor concerning specific and/or additional responsibilities that the administrator has undertaken. The summary of administrative responsibilities rarely exceeds one page in length.

The third item of basic information included in all administrative portfolios is a description of the administrator’s approach to administration. In the table of contents, the administrator may wish to title this statement, “philosophy of administration,” “approach to administration,” “administrative objectives and methodology,” or “administrative strategies.” Whatever the specific title, this statement is a two- to three-page reflective description of the administrator’s perspective on how one should carry out the responsibilities of the position. In this section, the administrator informs the reader about how and why the administrator carries out the assigned responsibilities as he or she does.

The statement will have more meaning if the administrator includes specific examples of administrative practices that show how the methodologies used fit administrative objectives within the context of the institution’s mission and campus culture. In this section, the administrator provides the reader with a sense of the values and priorities that the administrator brings to the position and the administrator’s logic for decision-making, approach to supervising others, and manner for working with colleagues. This section of the portfolio offers the reader a more insightful look at how the administrator does the job than the reader might get from observing the administrator. When assessments are based on third-party observations, the administrator being described or evaluated is at the mercy of those things the observer elects to notice, whereas the administrator controls the content of the portfolio and, therefore, builds the perceptual frame from which the reader will view and assess the administrator’s performance. At a minimum, make certain that the portfolio addresses the key aspects of how the administrator approaches the position responsibilities.

Step 5. Select a Portfolio Mentor

The writers recommend that the administrator use a mentor in building the portfolio. In Chapter Three of this text, the authors describe the benefits of collaboration and suggest who might serve as a mentor for the portfolio process. Depending on the purpose of preparing the portfolio, the ideal mentor may be the administrator’s supervisor or another colleague at the home institution. The administrator may also use a professional colleague from a different institution. The mentor can be anyone the administrator believes can coach him or her through a reflective process in which the administrator analyzes how he or she performs the administrative responsibilities. To be effective, the mentor must have the interpersonal skills and attitude necessary to develop the type of relationship needed for effective mentoring. The administrator’s mentor must also have knowledge of measures and procedures for assessing effective administrative performance.

The administrator will want to select and involve the mentor after determining the portfolio purpose and anticipated readers. If the administrator’s mentor is unfamiliar with the portfolio, the mentor may find it helpful to review this text before beginning work. Once the mentor is briefed on the portfolio, he or she will be ready to review the draft introduction, summary of administrative responsibilities, and statement of administrative philosophy. If the administrator finds it difficult to draft these items, he or she will want to involve the mentor to talk through the content of the first three sections of basic portfolio information.

Please remember that the administrator’s mentor can only be effective in helping prepare the portfolio if the administrator engages openly in a reflective collaboration about his or her administrative responsibilities and job performance. The administrator must resolve to approach this exercise in an objective, analytical manner. If he or she becomes defensive, there is not much that the mentor can do to help, and the administrator will fail to realize the many benefits of preparing an administrative portfolio.

If, for any reason, the administrator decides to self-mentor, the writers recommend that he or she read Chapter Nine on serving as a portfolio mentor and answer the questions recommended for the mentors. The administrator should consider using a colleague to discuss one or more specific issues relevant to the portfolio to help with the decisions that are best made when corroborated. For example, if the administrator is unsure whether a particular illustration evidences a certain skill, the administrator can corroborate the thinking on this one aspect with someone even if the administrator does not have a mentor for the entire portfolio writing process.

Step 6. Select Items for the Portfolio

In addition to the basic portfolio information (introduction, summary of responsibilities, and description of administrative philosophy), the administrator will want to select other items that illustrate his or her administrative style (behaviors) and offer evidence of administrative effectiveness (outcomes). The items that project the style will describe how the administrator approaches such activities as decision-making, planning, organizing, and communicating. The items that indicate the administrator’s effectiveness will inevitably include demonstrable results (awarded accreditation, grants received, increased diversity) and performance evaluation data. The items included in the portfolio should provide the teacher with an assessment of the administrator’s capacity for, and effectiveness in, performing the assigned responsibilities. Collectively, the items included in the portfolio should give the reader a clear impression of such important aspects as the administrator’s knowledge about the position, acumen for resource and personnel management, interpersonal skill, professional judgment, and commitment to professional growth.

The items included in the portfolio may come from oneself or from others. In Chapter Five of this text, the writers present a sampling of the types of items that might be included in a portfolio. While this is not an exhaustive list, it illustrates the range of items that might be selected to evidence the administrative style and effectiveness. It is important to remember that no single item in the portfolio can possibly provide a comprehensive view of the administrator’s performance. Rather, the reader’s impression of that performance will culminate from a summative review of all the items included in the portfolio. The selection of particular items for the portfolio offers comment on the administrator’s personal priorities and preferences, administrative style, and particular responsibilities

Since the portfolio derives from a reflective, collaborative process, it is possible that each new step will cause the administrator to fine tune previous steps. For example, as the administrator chooses the items to be included in the portfolio, he or she may find it necessary to modify the table of contents or to retitle some of the sections of the portfolio. The administrator may even want to reconsider the purpose for building a portfolio and perhaps sharpen the focus of the introduction to the portfolio.

Step 7. Prepare Statements on Each Item

For each of the administrative responsibilities listed, prepare a statement of the administrator’s activities, initiatives, and accomplishments. If, for example, one responsibility is faculty development, the administrator may engage in such activities and initiatives as conducting annual performance counseling sessions with individual faculty, starting a mentoring program for new faculty hires, or implementing a teaching portfolio program focused on improvement of individual faculty. The administrator’s accomplishments might include coaching six untenured faculty through successful tenure application and securing funds from the central administration to support faculty travel to professional conferences. The objective for the statement is to inform the reader of the nature and extent of work performed by the administrator for each position responsibility.

Step 8. Select and Organize the Appendices

The narrative of the typical portfolio is approximately eight to 12 double-spaced pages. The items included in the narrative are supported by documentation that is presented in a series of appendices. Resist the temptation to include many lengthy documents as appendices. The appendices will only serve the intended purpose if they are of a manageable number and length for the reader to digest. The information presented in the appendices serves as supportive evidence for statements made in the portfolio. Documents presented as appendices may include performance evaluation data, reports, letters from accrediting bodies or other external reviewers, and documents or materials prepared by the administrator in performing assigned responsibilities.

The administrator may find it useful to flag the statements made in the draft portfolio that warrant some type of supporting evidence and make certain that there is appropriate and sufficient support for each statement included in the appendices. It is entirely possible that one supporting item can be used to document several statements. For example, if one major responsibility involved preparing a department for accreditation review, the letter from the accrediting agency is likely to address many, if not all, of the varied aspects of this administrative responsibility.

Step 9. Present the Portfolio

It is efficient and practical to organize the portfolio in a single three-ring binder that arranges the various documents and materials in separate sections labeled with identification tabs. Once everything is in final form, the administrator will want to allow his or her portfolio mentor to review it. If the administrator has collaborated with a mentor in building the portfolio, the administrator will discover that the mentor is as invested in the final product as the administrator. Consequently, portfolio mentors are typically excellent proofreaders.

If possible, the administrator may want to have the portfolio reviewed by one or a few individuals who did not collaborate on its preparation to determine if the portfolio achieves the intended purpose. The writers recommend that the administrator meet individually with anyone reading the portfolio to hear firsthand the reader’s reaction to it. The session will be more productive if the administrator resists the temptation to defend what is in the portfolio but asks specific follow-up questions in order to understand how the content was received. Such invited reviews of the portfolio will provide the administrator with useful feedback on whether the portfolio content and presentation serves the intended purpose.

Folks:

The posting below looks offers some provocative comments on the professors’ role as mentor to students. It is from Chapter 19: Reconceptualizing the Faculty Role: Alternative Models, by James R. Chan, Michael V. Fortunato, Alan Mandell, Susan Oaks, and Duncan RyanMann, SUNY Empire State College, in Reinventing Ourselves, Interdisciplinary Education, Collaborative Learning, and Experimentation in Higher Education, Barbara Leigh Smith & John McCann, Editors. The Evergreen State College. Copyright © 2001 by Anker Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. ISBN 1-882982-35-5. Anker Publishing Company, Inc. 176 Ballville Road P.O. Box 249 Bolton, MA 01740-0249 [www.ankerpub.com] Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: Healing Time: Peacemaking in Two Troubled Departments

Tomorrow’s Academic Careers

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FACULTY AS MENTOR

A certain privilege has traditionally been associated with the status of the faculty member: access to specialized knowledge, the prerogative to identify what is important to learn, the right to impart that knowledge to those who come to us to gain it, and the authority to judge if another has acquired appropriate learning. In conventional academic settings, the very expertise of the faculty has been framed by a set of boundaries that separated faculty from students. Faculty held the important knowledge, conveyed it to those who cared to know, and developed criteria for and carried out what was determined to be appropriate evaluation.

The presuppositions of such a model have been opened to debate by a range of issues and realities that now characterize our educational landscape. We live in a world where the question of what is important to know is not easily answered and where the amount of knowledge at least theoretically available to us continues to expand at a phenomenal rate: that is, in a world where such authority is fleeting. Even the supposedly clear and meaningful disciplinary conditions that informed so much of our own education and our identities as academic professions have been thrown into question. No thoughtful faculty person can know enough about what there is to know to make final claims about that knowledge.’

Further, the institutions within which we work have dramatically changed. The range of students who enter our classrooms-in terms of ethnicity, race, gender, age, and life experiences-has expanded. It is nearly impossible to prejudge who will sit before us, what they already know, what they want to know, and what tools we might employ to most effectively help them learn. What we had taken for granted before (however appropriately or inappropriately) we cannot assume today.

Institutions have responded to some of these realities in a number of ways. The drive to find a viable market niche and to respond to new clientele has meant more flexible schedules, evening classes, weekend options, distance learning programs, the formal acknowledgement of learning gained outside of accredited academic institutions, and institutional fixtures (from orientations to the library to course guides) that are more user-friendly. Clearly, colleges have become more aware of trying to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body-of providing levels of access, particularly through newly devised delivery systems that had not existed before.

Most of these institutional changes have been at the edges of faculty experience. They have not usually touched the more protected arena of faculty privilege. Particularly with the inclusion of a greater number of working adult students, however, faculty have been called upon to expand the range and nature of their interactions with students. On a simple level, it has not been unusual for faculty to have increased the hours they are available to students outside of the classroom. More significantly, because of the experiences, goals, dilemmas, and academic strengths and weaknesses that these so-called nontraditional students have brought to our academic worlds, faculty have found themselves taking on more advisory roles, serving as guides and consultants, and helping their students negotiate their way through formerly alien academic terrain to gain the kinds of skills and competencies that we know they need. The inclusion of such a counseling dimension into the very fabric of many of our lives as academic instructors has also meant a subtle but important shift in the nature of communication between faculty and student. We have learned to listen with new attentiveness and care, knowing that our ability to understand and respond is directly related to our students’ success as learners.

But the most powerful shift occurs when the interrelated movement from providing better institutional access to listening and counseling does touch the very core of the conventional faculty role. And it is here that the potential of a new relationship between students and teacher emerges. As Mandell and Herman (1996) have described such a collaborative stance is at the heart of the role of faculty as mentor. That is, in an institutional context that works for true access (not only for admittance but for the possibility of success), listening becomes a necessary art, and teaching-and the knowledge upon which it is based-becomes an ongoing project of locating and/or creating imaginative learning tools to respond to the academic needs of individual students whose voices we can never disregard. Garrison (1992) describes the emerging dialog this way:

Only through continuous and critical dialogue between learner and facilitator can a dynamic and optimal balance of control be realized. The balance of control will probably shift depending on the context and the proficiency of the learner. However, through sharing control there is an increased probability of students reaching desired and worthwhile learning goals which, in turn, would result in improved motivation, ability to learn, and self-directedness. (p. 144)

In the last few years, the word mentoring has taken on a rather hierarchical cast. In such contexts (many of them corporate), mentors are experienced guides who know and can offer expert advice, those who have been especially successful and can show others how to succeed. But the notion of faculty as mentor introduced here emphasizes sharing control and meaningful reciprocity. In fact, it is about the deliberate creation of opportunities for common learning. It also is motivated by the quest to follow the lead offered by an individual student’s questions, concerts, or idiosyncratic understanding into new areas of academic exploration, even those that stretch and challenge our own sense of what we know. In this way, mentoring accents the importance of our strengths as academic generalists who have learned to work with problems that cut across the disciplines and themes that are inherently interdisciplinary. Mentoring embeds us in a distinctive approach to teaching and learning that deliberately legitimates the questioning of faculty authority and the claims to knowledge upon which that authority rests. By inviting a student to participate in his/her own learning (for example, through faculty and students creating individualized learning contracts as an integral part of the learning process or working together to design an entire curriculum), and by providing room for a student to gain the new skills necessary to work independently, we offer ourselves as engaged interlocutors who demonstrate that we care deeply about dialog and reflection and about the critical examination of pertinent questions, many of which were not our questions at the start.

In effect, through interactions with their students, mentors try to model the very kind of learning they hope their students will continue to pursue. That is, in a quite powerful and palpable way, the ideal of lifelong learning, usually reserved for students, equally pertains to the faculty mentor. We are always in the process of creating new studies with students, tinkering with old plans, searching for and coordinating effective resources, immersing ourselves in a new question, following the lead of an issue that a student has begun to articulate, making connections with a colleague who may offer a suggestive direction. We are, above all, listening, guiding, trying out new learning strategies, and staying alert to what may become yet another opening.

Perhaps like all more democratic experiments, the experience of faculty as mentor is a rather precarious one. Traditional faculty authority has been based on bodies of knowledge and academic structures that reinforce them. To enter a world of mentoring is to practice with the expectation that through serious and honest discourse and negotiation (and a community of other mentors who can provide support, encouragement, and critical scrutiny), plans for individual studies and curricula can be built that are academically rich and that flow from the lives of our students as parents, workers, scholars, members of a community, and citizens. To gain experience in such a faculty role that emphasizes not separation but connection, dialog, and a reweaving of relationships of authority is, in itself, a new kind of privilege.