Overview
The Libraries Mentoring Program is available to all library employees, with mentoring purposes customized to needs of the mentee. The University Libraries mentoring program seeks to provide opportunities and support for participants to:
- Become better oriented to the University of Minnesota, to the University Libraries, and to the library profession;
- Grow and develop as they shape their career plans;
- Navigate promotion processes in the librarian series;
- Navigate changes in the organization;
- Achieve professional goals; and
- Feel a greater sense of belonging at the University of Minnesota and in the University Libraries.
Program elements
- Traditional dyad model (one-to-one mentoring)
- More customized support for mentees
- More privacy and may be easier to form trusting, candid, and safe mentoring relationships
- Often the basis for long-term mentoring arrangements
- 1 year duration, with an opportunity to renew and a no-fault clause for early dissolution of a mentor-mentee pairing
- Mentor and mentee intentionally set mentoring goals for the year
- Mentoring agreement: signed by mentor and mentee, laying out goals and objectives for the mentoring relationship for the year
- Modeled on the mentoring contract in use by the University of Colorado-Boulder Libraries
- Recommended that mentor-mentee pairs meet at least monthly, but meeting duration is at the discretion of mentoring pairs
- Mentors go through training, and the mentor cohort meets in several convenings during the year to check in
- Mentor matching is based on a mix of needed expertise and shared interest
For information about the Libraries Mentoring Program, contact Jennie Burroughs ([email protected]).