The Urgency for Outreach to Shy College Students
Shy students do not come to office hours nor seek the advice of faculty members. In the college classroom, they are quiet and reserved and
John Gomez, PhD
September 12, 2025
A FREE PUBLICATION FROM THE CREATORS OF THE TEACHING PROFESSOR
mentoring students
Increasing Enrollment and Retention Through a Community of Care Approach in Higher Education
The success of higher education institutions rests on their ability to increase student enrollment and retain learners. The foundation of achieving this lies in building
Judith Blakely, EdD, Michael Jazzar, PhD, and Michelle McCraney, EdD
June 30, 2023
Flipping Faculty from Guide on the Side to Mentor in the Center
The challenges for faculty working with students in the 21st century are rising. How can faculty meet the many challenges facing higher education? In the
Erica Blumenstock
December 19, 2022
Creating a Culture of Mentoring on Campus
Every college wants to boost diversity on campus. Every college wants to help their students succeed in the classroom and after graduation. And in our
Chotsani Williams West
May 16, 2022
Higher Ed at Its Best: Helping One Another Survive and Thrive Through a Pandemic
I’ve been a professor for nearly 30 years, charged with teaching hundreds of students about psychological development. They learn how humans adapt to physical, cognitive,
Linda McKenna Gulyn, PhD
February 24, 2021
Online Mentorship: A Worthwhile Investment
Mentorship can take various forms and serve numerous goals, however, McKinsey (2016) summarized the many definitions succinctly by stating that to mentor “is to provide
Tyler Snyder and Lynne N. Kennette, PhD
December 11, 2020
2,700 Minutes: How to Make the Most of Your Office Hours
Most faculty schedule at least three office hours per week—that’s 2,700 minutes a semester. If you have 135 students, that’s 20 minutes for each student.
Margaret Walsh PhD.
January 10, 2020
Office Hours Off Campus
Our “office hours off campus” idea transpired from a speech given by Dr. Iain Campbell at a publisher’s workshop we attended. Dr. Campbell teaches large
Sarah Nixon, PhD, and John Fishback
August 23, 2019
What to Do When a Student is Failing: A Guide for Mentors
One joy of a faculty member in academia is the opportunity to train the next generation of scholars who will continue our work to innovate
David C. Schwebel, PhD
July 15, 2019
Faculty Mentoring Undergraduates: The Nature, Development, and Benefits of Mentoring Relationships
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt of a work that is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To read the article in its entirety, visit the Teaching & Learning Inquiry website. http://tlijournal.com/tli/index.php/TLI/article/view/125/77
Educational research shows that close student-faculty interaction is a key factor in college student learning and success. Most literature on undergraduate mentoring, however, focuses on planned programs of mentoring for targeted groups of students by non-faculty professionals or student peers. Based on the research literature and student and faculty testimony from a residential liberal arts college, this article shows that unplanned “natural” mentoring can be crucial to student learning and development and illustrates some best practices. It advances understanding of faculty mentoring by differentiating it from teaching, characterizing several functional types of mentoring, and identifying the phases through which a mentoring relationship develops. Arguing that benefits to students, faculty, and institutions outweigh the risks and costs of mentoring, it is written for faculty who want to be better mentors and provides evidence that administrators should value and reward mentoring.
Elizabeth McKinsey, PhD
June 27, 2016
