We hope and expect that new faculty at Carleton will find a rich array of resources and people in their departments available to help them during their first year. The Faculty Cohort Mentoring Program organized by the Provost’s Office is not meant to be a substitute for mentoring relationships that develop naturally within, or even outside of, a faculty member’s department.
The purpose of the Cohort Mentoring Program is twofold:
- To help new faculty make their transition to the wider life of the Carleton community
- To provide seasoned ears and voices for new faculty as they address the challenges and experience the rewards of teaching at the College.
The program ensures that every new faculty member has the opportunity to have a confidential working relationship with experienced colleagues who stand outside of any evaluative structure of the College. Every new faculty member is part of a cohort of new faculty colleagues matched with two senior colleagues who have been at the College for several years.
The goals of the new faculty mentoring program are:
- Reinforcing community building through a cohort model
- Providing a holistic model of mentoring that helps new faculty members identify support networks
- Fostering a community of practice by requiring cohort members to perform various “tasks” and then debrief with their cohort about their experience
- Identifying institutional resources for support
- Complementing and coordinating with the work done by Junior Faculty Affairs Committee (JFAC) and the Perlman Learning and Teaching Center (LTC)