Looking to formalize and standardize long-standing practices for mentoring junior faculty, Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe has created specific guidelines for mentoring between established professors and tenure-track junior professors. The system went into effect at the beginning of the academic year, Jaffe said.

The guidelines characterize the ideal faculty mentor as tenured, capable of sustaining one-on-one relationships and actively conducting research.

Also recommended, under the guidlines, is that mentors commit to at least three meetings per semester with their assigned junior faculty member, assist with their research by reading works-in-progress and grant proposals and visit their classes.

Junior-faculty mentoring has always taken place at the University, Jaffe said, but now the process will be "institutionalized." He said he developed the guidelines for general use by academic departments from a similar method he used while he was chair of the Economics department from 2000 to 2002.

Jaffe said he is asking the departments to name a mentorship coordinator for each junior faculty member.

"The most important thing to make mentoring effective is to make sure that every tenure-track faculty member knows that there is someone that they can talk to about their professional development," he added.

Jaffe said he has not yet received any feedback and that it was too early to tell how effective the new guidelines have been.

Provost Marty Krauss said the faculty mentors and those being mentored will attend workshops this year.

Krauss said the system is "a very important piece of professional development," and that it was important to "make sure that we are supporting our assistant professors in the most appropriate ways.