Mentoring in HE

Mentoring and coaching offer meaningful and significant ways in which academic staff can encourage and support each other in their professional development and ultimately go on to enhance the student experience. The Edinburgh Napier Mentoring and Coaching Award (ENMCA) aims to provide a framework for this activity that includes scholarship, reflective practice and peer support, designed to enable the mentor/coach and mentee/coachee to identify and work collaboratively towards achievement of the mentee's development goals. This paper explores if and how mentors who have participated in the ENMCA report empowerment through the learning and mentoring practice of the programme, and to evaluate the impact this might have on the institution, such as supporting achievement of the strategic aim of academic excellence and demonstration of organisational values such as professionalism, ambition, inclusion and innovation.

Resumo: A liderança constitui um tema cada vez mais presente nas abordagens que elegem a análise organizacional e a gestão das escolas como centros de  interesse. Tratando-se de um fenómeno complexo, o seu estudo não pode ser
isolado de outras vertentes básicas para a compreensão da escola, tais como os modelos de administração e gestão e os pressupostos teórico-concetuais das perspetivas organizacionais que enquadram o seu funcionamento. Neste artigo procuramos, num primeiro momento, situar a evolução histórica das conceções sobre liderança no contexto das teorias organizacionais e, numa segunda etapa, identificar algumas das principais dimensões que nos parecem prementes a uma certa peculiaridade do exercício da liderança nas escolas. Como principais objetivos deste trabalho pretendemos, por um lado, contribuir para o incremento
da investigação num domínio inerente à gestão das escolas ao qual nem sempre foi dada a devida atenção e, por outro, alertar para a necessidade de se incrementar, em termos de políticas educativas, programas de formação especializada para os gestores escolares que elejam este domínio como conteúdo estratégico. Palavras chave: Gestão das escolas; liderança escolar; análise organizacional da escola.
Abstract: School leadership is a recurrent theme in the approaches that focus on organizational analysis and school management. As a complex phenomenon, the study of school leadership cannot be isolated from other basic underpinnings of the understanding of school, such as models for administration and management and the theoretic-conceptual frameworks of the organizational perspectives that frame its’ functioning. In this paper, we aim at, in a first instance, mapping
the historical evolution of the theories on school leadership in the context of organizational theories. In a second part of the paper we will identify some of the main dimensions that are particularly pressing in the exercise of school leadership in schools. As main objectives of our work we want to, on one hand, contribute to the broadening of the study of a particular domain of school management that has been somewhat neglected and, on the other hand, to raise awareness, in what concerns educational policies, for the need to implement
programs of specialized training for school managers that choose school leadership as a strategic content.
Keywords: School management; school leadership; school organizational analysis.

3 1 The TTnet was established by CEdEfop in 1998 as a pan-European forum for key players and decision-makers involved in the training and professional development of vocational teachers and trainers. The TTnet aims have been to foster cooperation between key national actors; produce recommendations, guidance and tools for practitioners and decision-makers, and support the implementation of EU priorities for VET teachers and trainers. The network is being dismantled during 2011. Its activities are being taken over by the new Thematic Working Group on trainers in VET set up by the European Commission / dG Education and Culture (dG EAC) in cooperation with CEdEfop (www.cedefop. europa.eu).

The author argues that first-generation college students (FGS) have compounded challenges when they pursue graduate education. As a first-generation college student, he was not able to gather advice from family or his job supervisor, who had no experience with graduate school. Drawing from his experience and the existing FGS-related research, the author details practical advice for making a successful transition from college to graduate school. He concludes with a list of essential questions that prospective graduate students should ask themselves and their mentors when considering graduate study.

The low proportion of women within the subject areas of Theology and Religious Studies has long been observed, and is increasingly recognised as a serious problem for staff and students. In this new study, Mathew Guest, Sonya Sharma and Robert Song chart patterns of gender imbalance among staff and students across UK TRS departments, exploring why such patterns remain so persistent. Drawing on interviews with TRS academics across the country, the report examines the professional life of female university staff, and makes recommendations for how universities might address the inequalities of opportunity and practice that emerge.

This research was commissioned by Universities Australia Executive Women (UAEW) to provide a resource that will help ensure that development of the UAEW Mentoring Program is underpinned by current research and that this practice is extended to practitioners in the sector. The partnership of UAEW and the LH Martin Institute to develop the UAEW Mentoring Program presented an opportunity not just to have a positive impact on leadership quality and gender profiles in the sector, but also to advance and share knowledge of how such programs might be designed to ensure the most positive results for the mentee, the mentor, and the institution. The UAEW Program began in 2009 and offers: a tangible program that matched LH Martin Institute's goal of developing programs that are premised on recognition and promotion of the importance of diversity and inclusivity in leadership and management; the identified need to develop and support more female leaders in the sector and; the capacity to research both the program and the context.

Purpose -There is a meager body of research addressing the role educational leadership preparation programs in colleges and universities play in preparing women leaders. Also educational leadership preparation research has yet to explore ways in which mentorship provides additional capital for female graduate students. This study seeks to understand the challenges facing, and the opportunities available to, female graduate students in educational leadership departments. Design/methodology/approach -The study used qualitative methods to explore the constructs of educational leadership preparation and mentorship of female graduate students. Qualitative methods, specifically a questionnaire and a collaborative focus group, were informed by the work of feminist theory and were used to explore participants' experiences and perceptions with the larger purpose of understanding the implications of their experiences for the development of strategies and programs intended to support female graduate students. Findings -The following themes emerged from the participants' stories: constraints within the organizational culture, personal and familial sacrifice, struggles with identity, questioning self, and experiences with mentoring. Practical implications -The findings have important implications for the roles university leadership preparation program structures might play in supporting female graduate students and their career success. The findings also offer recommendations for the development of mentoring programs for female graduate students. Originality/value -Currently, there is an exceptional lack of research documenting the lived experiences of female doctoral students, particularly research that can be used to inform policy and program development. To that end, the qualitative study described in this paper helps in understanding the challenges facing, and the opportunities available to, female graduate students in educational leadership departments as well as in understanding the implications of such experiences for the development of strategies and programs intended to support female graduate students.

"Educators working with adult students employ many types of mentoring models. One form of mentoring-in-motion, “Academic Spiritwalking” (Mulvihill, 2013) may be worth further consideration.  In simple terms, it is a mentoring conversation that occurs between an educator and a student over a series of walking meetings, rather than sitting in an office talking over a desk, or rushed exchanges in a hallway on the way to another class or meeting, or text-based communications via email, instant message or phone texts, or other types of exchanges that keep us sedentary.  This walking and talking methodology combines components of Native American traditions that use a “talking stick” ritual with psychological and physiological theories about the health benefits of embodiment/body movement, and with the emphasis on the mind-body-spirit connections within wellness theories.  “Talking stick” traditions include a ritual whereby full attention and honor is given to the person who holds the talking stick as they tell a story, share their experiences, present a dilemma, or wish to arrange their words for deeper meaning and self-understanding.  Wellness theories are predicated on the direct and inseparable mind-body-spirit connection.  “Pedagogical listening” (Mulvihill, 2010) is at the heart of this form of mentoring and requires the educator to listen for the dimensions of the student’s storytelling that need alignment with their educational goals or aspirations."  See article on p. 12.

Recientes estudios en inteligencia emocional (Goleman 1995) han resaltado la importancia de las emociones en la creación de redes interpersonales dentro del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Figuras intermedias, como los mentores, pueden ayudar a los estudiantes a desarrollar competencias emocionales necesarias para un mejor rendimiento académico. Inspirado en el proyecto Tutor Quirón de la Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, el programa Tutor Quirón de la Universidad de Zaragoza se basa en el concepto de mentoría entre iguales. Básicamente, propone una actividad de coordinación, orientación y seguimiento entre los estudiantes del Máster y de Doctorado de Estudios Textuales y Culturales en Lengua Inglesa. La implantación de este sistema responde a un plan de acción estratégica multidisciplinar que permite supervisar con más precisión el proceso de aprendizaje de cada estudiante y, al mismo tiempo potenciar el aprendizaje autónomo y responsable. El propósito de esta comunicación es bidimensional. Por una parte, presentamos el programa concreto que estamos llevando a cabo en la Universidad de Zaragoza y por otra parte, incidimos en el papel fundamental que tiene la inteligencia emocional como elemento subyacente durante el proceso de aprendizaje en el Máster de Estudios Textuales y Culturales en Lengua Inglesa.

In this article, we highlighted the stories of university student mentors who are involved in the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME). The AIME program works with young Indigenous school students, at primary and secondary school levels, to encourage continued participation in education and to consider university as a viable life goal. The AIME program is explored from the perspective of the university students who are selected to mentor young Australian Indigenous school students. Adopting a narrative inquiry approach, the article presents richly descriptive insight into the motivations of these mentors and highlights how this experience has impacted upon them. While the research presented focuses on narratives of mentors, the data indicate that the AIME program employs an innovative approach to mentoring that enhances cultural understanding for mentors.

One of my graduate students recently asked me why I help them so much. The long answer involves my conception of what it means to be a professor and mentor to students. The short answer is that I have already made many mistakes that they might also make without the advice of someone who has been there.

This report draws on data collected using the following research
methods:
o Interviews (nine) with key stakeholders including representatives at a strategic and operational level
o Visits to 2 schools in the area: an 11-18 school situated in the
coastal strip in Lincolnshire, a deprived area with very little long
term employment and an 11-16 school with a shared sixth form,
situated in an urban area. At both schools individual interviews
were held with the following: senior members of staff (4),
Aimhigher coordinators (2) and support staff (2). Group
interviews were also conducted with male and female pupils who
had taken part in Aimhigher activities: Year 10 (3), 11 (9), 12 (9),
13 (4)
o Telephone interviews (13) with parents of pupils involved in
Aimhigher activities at the 2 schools of whom were subsequently
interviewed.

The evaluation also draws on research conducted by the IAS with a further 3 secondary schools and one Pupil Referral Unit involved in the Peer Mentoring and Robot Competition initiatives. Members of the research team visited these institutions and interviews were conducted with staff members and pupils involved. Telephone interviews were also conducted with project team members involved in the Robot Competition initiative.

Due to budget constraints the case studies were restricted to 2 of the 37 schools involved in Aimhigher activities. However, it should be emphasised, that the qualitative approach used has allowed the research team to collect more in-depth and richer data from this small sample. Additional interviews with key stakeholders, as identified above, have allowed different perspectives on the programme to be explored. As a final point, it should be noted that the case studies were conducted in March 2006, and as a result some pupils would not yet have experienced all the activities.