TU Junior Faculty Mentoring Program - The University of Tulsa
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TU Junior Faculty Mentoring Program

The TU Junior Faculty Mentoring Program is designed to help support junior faculty colleagues when they start at TU and throughout their first year (and beyond). Within their first year, junior faculty are tasked with navigating a new institution, teaching new courses, and developing research programs. To help support new colleagues and provide broader community support on campus, the TU Junior Faculty Mentoring Program pairs junior faculty with mentors from across campus, incorporating multiple mentoring relationships with a Departmental Mentor, College Mentor, and Cohort Group.

  • Department Mentors are senior colleagues (associate or full professor) who acts as a traditional mentor. The role of this mentor is to guide the junior faculty mentee in understanding departmental culture, disciplinary scholarship, teaching, and departmental expectations for tenure and promotion. They may also aid in professional networking outside of the university.
  • College Mentors are situated in the same college as the mentee but are selected from outside of the mentee’s home department. In addition to general teaching, scholarship, and service advice, the College Mentor guides the mentee in college and university level service and offers advice regarding the tenure process. Most importantly, this college mentor is available for discussions that the mentee would like to keep confidential from their department. Faculty who recently went through tenure and promotion, or those who have served on college-level tenure and promotion committees are especially encouraged to act as mentors for faculty on the tenure-track.
  • Cohort Group Mentoring is structured both through formalized workshops and social events throughout the first year to build a sense of community and solidarity within a new faculty cohort. By bringing the cohort together each semester to discuss shared rites of passage, such as the second-year pre-tenure review, new faculty can share their experiences and knowledge with the rest of their cohort. Thus, the cohort group function as peer mentors through workshops and social activities organized by the Henneke Center.

If you are interested in acting as a College Mentor for a junior colleague (whether this year or in the future), please complete the form on the Henneke Center TU Hub site.

If you are a junior colleague and are interested in participating in the TU Junior Faculty Mentoring Program, please complete the form on the Henneke Center TU Hub site.

If you have any questions about the TU Junior Faculty Mentoring Program, please reach out to Danielle Macdonald at danielle-macdonald@utulsa.edu