In order to increase and maintain gender and ethnic diversity within the STEM professoriate, the “guru mentor model” should be scrapped and replaced with a more thoughtful approach to the specific needs that new STEM faculty members have as they seek to launch their careers.
That was one of the key recommendations made Wednesday at a panel discussion that focused on what it takes to attract and keep more ethnic minorities and women in STEM faculty positions in order to break the cycle of the lack of role models from the same backgrounds as students who aspire to become professors.
“The biggest problem of all is that we somehow imagine that people can only be mentored in their specific field,” said Kerry Ann Rockquemore, president and CEO of the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity.
“I think we need to fundamentally rethink mentoring, because ultimately this model that most people have in mind not only does it not work for most people most of the time, it’s not even what I would consider a healthy model because it’s a dependency model. People are going to one person over and over again to get their needs met.”
A better approach, Rockquemore said, would be to focus on people’s specific needs—whether it’s how to win an NIH grant, teach a larger class or establish one’s authority in a classroom where students are skeptical of their credentials because of prejudice against their background.
The best person to go to is one who has the particular expertise that a given faculty member needs at a given time.
