Mentorship and Academic Development

Mentorship of faculty, students and policy makers is at the core of academic development. This book explores several approaches to mentoring and the benefits of mentorship in higher education and in teaching and research.

Mentoring is based on trust and care and building relationships and skills through affinity and empathy. However, mentoring practices in higher education are constantly imperilled by crises, political polarization, technological developments, and economic disparities. This is precisely why it is particularly important and desirable to promote trust as a basis for the development within academic communities through mentoring. The chapters in this volume emphasize the mutual benefits of mentorship for both mentees and mentors, highlighting the importance of trust, reciprocity, and care. The development of a conceptual understanding of mentoring practices as ‘eye-to-eye interactions’ helps unearth pathways towards building connections that nurture everyone’s voice, empowerment and growth.

This book was originally published as a special issue of International Journal for Academic Development.

Miriam Hansen is Associate Professor of Eucational Psychology and Executive Director of the Interdisciplinary College for University Teaching at Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany. Her research interests include the role of culture, emotions, and motivation in higher education as well as teaching and learning with AI.

Suzanne Le-May Sheffield is the Director of the Centre for Learning and Teaching, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her research interests have included graduate student teaching development, educational developer well-being, and informal teaching and learning conversations.

Anna Santucci is Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Center of Teaching Excellence, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA. Her interests include participatory art pedagogies, intercultural teaching and learning, and academic development for higher education transformation informed by principles of love, hope, equity, justice, co-creation, reflection, agency, and dialogue.

Roeland van der Rijst is Professor of Educational Sciences and the Director of Research at the Graduate School of Teaching (ICLON) at Leiden University, The Netherlands. His research focuses on teaching and teacher learning in higher education. He received an honorary fellowship of the Leiden Teachers’ Academy for his teaching and is a board member of the Netherlands Research School for Educational Sciences.