In order to provide information, encouragement, and support to graduate students, postdocs, and untenured faculty who are considering or pursuing faculty careers, MentorNet launched its Academic Career E-Mentoring (ACE) program in 2003 with support from a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) ADVANCE program. MentorNet's ACE program offers an unusual and valuable opportunity for graduate students and early career faculty to work with mentors in their fields, yet external to their own institutions. The purpose of the pilot program was to determine how external mentors might help develop the tiny percentage of women currently in faculty positions in many scientific and engineering fields.
In keeping with its ongoing evaluation process, MentorNet asked SJB Consulting to conduct an independent evaluation of the ACE program as part of the ADVANCE grant, seeking to understand the expectations, experiences, and beliefs of graduate students and early career faculty protégés, along with their tenured faculty mentors, and to determine whether MentorNet achieved its program implementation goals. The resulting report, "MentorNet: Academic Career E-Mentoring Program Evaluation Final Report," will be available shortly on MentorNet's web site in the evaluation section.
The MentorNet ACE Program
With the MentorNet ACE program, MentorNet matches protégés with tenured faculty mentors for one-on-one e-mentoring relationships. For a period of eight months, MentorNet provides training, coaching, and support to help ensure a successful outcome. As with MentorNet's Industry Career E-mentoring program, after completing an online profile, protégés may then select their mentor or have MentorNet automatically match them based on their profile data. The process is bi-directional, taking into account not only the protégés' preferences, but also the mentors' preferences.
Since its 2003 debut, the program has matched 459 protégés with tenured faculty mentors. Currently, there are 161 matched pairs; however, there's still a large unmet need for mentors—with 91 protégés awaiting a faculty mentor.
In developing the ACE program, MentorNet invited an advisory committee to help guide the new program's development—a group that provided invaluable support:
- Susan Ambrose, Associate Provost for Educational Development, Carnegie Mellon University
- Denice Denton, Chancellor, University of California-Santa Cruz
- Patricia Jones, Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University
- Anne MacLachlan, Senior Researcher, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California-Berkeley
- Carolyn Meyers, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Division of Academic Affairs, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
- Rick Reis, Executive Director, Stanford Integrated Manufacturing Association, and author, Tomorrow's Professor
"You are to be congratulated with the results in the ACE Report...There is a lot in that report which can be connected to several important changes going on in faculty life," suggests Anne MacLachlan.
Notable Findings
In the evaluation report, SJB Consulting describes the demographic characteristics, attitudes, and expectations of the 2003/2004 and 2004/2005 participating protégés and mentors, with comparisons made between matched and not-matched protégés, self-matched and MentorNet-matched protégés, and protégés/mentors from 2004/2005 and those from 2003/2004.
Protégés
Overall, protégés found their MentorNet experience valuable, believing that their mentors provided objective and honest answers to their questions and gave them realistic perspectives on what life as a faculty member is like. Other positive aspects of the mentoring experience include having a mentor who was a good match and providing support and encouragement for protégés pursuing a faculty position. Almost half the protégés (45%) felt very certain they would pursue a faculty position. However, tenured faculty mentors were less optimistic that their protégés would pursue faculty careers.
Almost 75% of the protégés surveyed found the matching process and email correspondence with their mentors largely useful. The two areas that protégés felt they learned the most about from their mentors were career/family balance and time management. Mentors responded similarly. Half the protégés also found MentorNet's discussion suggestions regarding questions to ask or issues to explore very helpful. Moreover, when asked it they had recommended MentorNet to other protégés, 65% said they had done so.
The evaluation also clearly highlights the importance of female faculty mentors, perhaps even more so than in other areas. Interviews with mentors and protégés indicated that pairs where the mentor was a woman reported the highest level of satisfaction. The interviews also suggest that every attempt should be made to recruit more women as tenured faculty mentors. In some cases, protégés reported that no women held faculty positions at their institution. And others felt that there were no good role models in their department or college; that just having a woman in the department didn't make her a good role model.
Mentors
As with protégés, ACE mentors were satisfied overall with their MentorNet experience:
- 86% agreed that MentorNet filled an unmet need for women1 seeking academic careers in engineering and science-related fields
- 77% stated that the MentorNet experience was well worth their time
- 92% said they signed up for MentorNet because they wanted to support women2 in engineering and science
- 69% agreed that more faculty members would volunteer to be mentors if they knew how MentorNet benefits students
- 54% indicated that one reason they signed up for e-mentoring was because it was convenient
- 82% thought more graduate students would participate if they knew more about MentorNet benefits3
Faculty mentors also offered insights into why mentor participation is lower than desired. When professors hear about MentorNet, the perception is that it takes more time than they have to give. Yet, participants in the MentorNet program learn that it doesn't take a lot of time, which is why MentorNet regularly works with current members to publicize the program amongst their colleagues and reminds them that they can have more the one protégé at a time.
Next Steps
MentorNet wants to continue the MentorNet ACE program as part of its One-on-One Mentoring Programs beyond the duration of the NSF grant. According to Carol Muller, MentorNet Founder and CEO, "One of our biggest challenges has been recruiting enough mentors to meet the demand. However, we're dedicated to increasing the number of mentors for protégés to choose from as well as broadening the scope of available expertise. That's why we plan to integrate MentorNet ACE into our core e-mentoring program and why we're stepping up our recruiting efforts." Those particularly interested in supporting the future development of MentorNet's ACE program should contact MentorNet CEO Carol Muller.
1When the ACE program began, MentorNet's primary mission focus was on women in engineering and science. This mission has since expanded, and as with all of MentorNet's programs, not only are men welcome to participate, but MentorNet now aims to serve all those underrepresented in these fields.
2See note above.
3MentorNet has not undertaken much effort to advertise the program's availability to protégés, since there have been more protégés than available mentors from the outset.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award SBE 0318510. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.