While first-year students turn to their exploratory advisors for guidance on classes to take or opportunities to pursue, faculty members can now look to their interdepartmental faculty mentors for advice on how to balance their responsibilities and pursue tenure.
The interdepartmental faculty mentorship program, which pairs faculty members with more experienced colleagues outside of their department, has grown significantly since Associate Dean for Faculty Development Esther Jones came to Brown in February 2024. Jones has expanded the program to be a more involved, multi-step process to match faculty with the best possible mentor.
Though interdepartmental mentorship has “been around a long time,” Jones said this formalized process “is only in its second year.”
“Given the nature of research being very interdisciplinary these days, there are oftentimes people in other departments who are doing work in related fields, and they might have some shared interests that are synergistic,” Jones said.
The program hopes to establish relationships that are “a long-term commitment,” particularly for early-career faculty on the tenure track. The program is offered to all full-time members of the faculty, including teaching professors, professors of the practice and research faculty, Jones added.
Typically, a “more senior” faculty member is paired with an “earlier career” faculty member, she said. But she emphasized that the mentorship also aims to benefit faculty “at each stage of (their) career,” not those just entering academia.
“Once you earn tenure, that’s not the end of your growth,” she said. “It’s always about building relationships and building connections with people who have had experience doing the thing that you are now trying to do, who have done it well and can provide some support and insight.”
Jonathan Russell, an assistant professor of egyptology and assyriology, joined the University in July 2024 and described the faculty mentorship program as “fantastic” in an interview with The Herald.
Russell and his mentor, Graham Oliver, a professor of classics and history, have discussed a wide variety of topics since they got paired, from the “nitty gritty” of structuring a workday to helping Russell balance work on his upcoming book with his teaching responsibilities.
“I’ve found it to be very useful in terms of setting realistic goals for myself,” he said, adding that it has been beneficial to hear about his mentor’s experience attempting to achieve similar goals.
Russell said that his initial discussions with Oliver were “very informal,” and that they talked about his goals for his first summer at Brown. “It started that way, and then every so often, at semi-regular intervals, we’ve had coffee or dinner together and sat down and continued to talk about how it’s going,” he added.
Russell said the program has “set (his) mind at ease” whenever he’s stuck on a problem, as he turns to his mentor as a “sounding board” for advice.
The mentorship program follows a “mentee-centered approach,” Jones said. The matching process begins with an optional survey sent out to faculty seeking to participate in the program.
Jones added that she consults with deans across the schools about mentor pairings after understanding what mentees are looking for. After this, she reaches out to potential mentor prospects about their availability.
The pairings are then invited to an optional “mentorship social.” The inaugural social was held in April, Jones explained.
The program can be just as meaningful for mentors as it is for mentees. “My mentee is terrific,” Oliver said.
During the five years that Oliver was the chair of the Department of Classics, he said he saw “how difficult it is for junior colleagues to go through those steps towards tenure.”
“I think for a new academic at Brown, there’s a lot to get used to,” Oliver added, describing pressures to both teach and produce research.
Oliver said he and Russell discussed standard criteria for receiving tenure and what committees will look for during his annual review. “It’s useful to be thinking about them in advance, and for someone else to be thinking about them, apart from the departmental chair,” he explained.
Maria Taroutina, an assistant professor of Slavic studies, joined the University in July 2024 and learned about the interdepartmental mentorship program at new faculty orientation.
She “thought it would be a really great idea” because she wanted guidance from someone “who would have a kind of larger bird’s eye view of where humanities sit at Brown in general.”
While many assistant professors wait six to seven years before applying for tenure, Taroutina will be applying next year. She said her mentor has been “really helpful” with advice about the process.
“It’s just nice when there’s a person who’s potentially gone through the process themselves,” Taroutina added. “That kind of first-hand advice is really helpful.”
Jones added that the pairings “can even lead to shared grant proposals,” co-teaching courses or working on projects together.
“It’s incredibly enriching and mutually enhancing when there’s good, thoughtful and intentional pairing that happens,” she said.
Samah Hamid is a senior staff writer at the Herald. She is from Sharon, Massachusetts and plans to concentrate in Biology. In her free time, you can find her taking a nap, reading, or baking a sweet treat.
