Re-Imagining the Human Dimension of Mentoring: A Framework for Research Administration and the Academy (Report‪)‬

Introduction Administrators and educators have become so metric oriented that it has become challenging to retrieve the human face of mentorship. In fact, mentoring may be considered a lost art and science. In Greek mythology, the spirit of mentoring is reflected in the character Mentor who serves as a faithful and wise advisor whose experience and knowledge benefit youth. The name "Mentor" is proverbial for a guide who opens up others to new experiences and the world, and who encourages and protects proteges. Today, exemplary research administrators and faculty mentors provide their expertise to less experienced individuals to help them advance in their academic programs and careers. Given that effective graduate student mentoring is not as common as it should be (Johnson, 2006; Johnson & Huwe, 2003), and given that fast-paced demands on education are suffocating quality mentoring (Mullen, 2007), how do those in research leadership and academic positions practice the wisdom and prudence necessary for developing, assessing, and improving programs? Because research administrators are systems thinkers who view the component parts of a system in relation to the whole (Senge, 2006), they should understand that the mentoring of novice research administrators is integral to their own work. As human relations experts, research administrators realize that human learning is a complex, and even mysterious and messy, business. Research leaders who comprehend that mentoring the new professional depends on intimate relationship building and new forms of learning are more apt to understand that mentorship defies quantification as well as formulaic approaches. Thus, leaders who grasp the qualitative dimensions of learning and situations lend strength to their professional domains.