The Mentor Network for Junior Faculty in the Discipline

Abstract

Mentorship is a valuable component of the growth of junior faculty, but mentorship and the mentorship network in the broadly defined agricultural education discipline is not well understood. This study describes junior faculty mentees in the discipline and their mentors, as well as the mentorship interactions, including the social network of connections. Junior faculty across the discipline were surveyed to determine their demographics, their mentors, and aspects of their mentorship relationships. The identified mentors were then surveyed for demographic information. The largest number of respondents were from school-based agricultural education for both mentees and mentors. Mentees were more likely to be younger and female than mentors were. Most mentors only had one mentee in the network, though agricultural communication mentors were more likely to have multiple mentees than the other concentrations. Most connections were informally made and did not meet regularly. For the social network analysis, most communities were not connected to the rest of the network, though it is unclear if this is the nature of the network or an artifact of how data collection occurred. Having a shared institution was a statistically significant predictor of connections. Gender was not a significant predictor, but age difference was positively associated at a statistically significant level. Those trying to ensure the success of junior faculty should be aware much of mentoring in the discipline in informal, which may not be ideal based on past research. More research is needed to understand what factors affect the quality of mentorship in the discipline.