The goal of mentoring is to help build a trusting, supportive relationship in order to more easily find belonging and success at the college.
Tenure-track faculty, lecturers, and visiting faculty who are teaching at Amherst for more than one year are assigned a mentor from their department. Department chairs can be mentors when most fitting. It is best to avoid having faculty who co-teach with a mentee serve a that person's mentor.
Tenure-track faculty in their first three years at Amherst will also be assigned a mentor from outside their department (i.e., a College Mentor).
Mentees should meet at least twice a semester with each of their mentors. Mentors reach out to their mentees to set up the meetings.
Mentors and Mentees together can spend up to $200 per year on meals, books, and the like that further their mentoring relationships.
Mentees provide information about their interests to the provost’s office, which will be shared with department chairs and used to help match them with mentors.
Mentees can opt out of mentoring by emailing their chair (for the department mentoring program) and Pawan Dhingra, associate provost and associate dean of the faculty (for the college mentoring program).
Department chairs should consider the information provided by mentees and the criteria of mentors when choosing a mentor, to the extent possible.
Peer mentoring is available to all faculty at any level.
An mentor who is external to the college is available to tenure-track faculty after their first year at the college.