In an Inside Higher Education op-ed, Kimberly Griffin, dean and professor, and W. Brad Johnson, faculty associate for Johns Hopkins University鈥檚 Graduate School of Education, outline an equity-minded approach to mentoring that advances inclusion and equity in higher education. They highlight how intentional mentoring can help build campus communities where all members feel valued, respected and supported.
Right now, it is imperative that individual faculty and staff remember that personal attitudes and behaviors鈥攑articularly those modeled and transmitted to students and early-career scholars in the context of mentoring relationships鈥攃onstitute a powerful opportunity for courageous action. More than ever, mentorship provides an avenue for continuing our commitments to advancing equity in higher education and creating more inclusive learning environments.
It may be no surprise that mentoring-linked belonging is particularly salient for members of our campus communities with minoritized identities, or members of groups that are subject to oppression and marginalization based on race, gender identity and expression, ability status, ethnicity, religion, and/or sexual identity.
Although talent is equally distributed across all socio-cultural groups, access to mentorship is not. Minoritized early-career colleagues report fewer mentoring interactions with faculty. Reasons include erroneous notions that mentees and mentors must share cultural identities, unconscious bias in mentee selection (we are all drawn to mentees who remind us of ourselves) and anxiety about making relational mistakes with mentees who identify differently. In our book , we propose an equity-minded approach to inclusive mentoring relationships. This approach requires faculty to be thoughtful, intentional and humble, especially when mentoring across cultural differences. It also invites faculty to become more comfortable feeling uncomfortable, empathizing with the marginalization many scholars continue to face and using their relationships as an intentional site of advocacy and support.
Read in Inside Higher Ed.
