Riding the Academic Freedom Train: A Culturally Responsive, Multigenerational Mentoring Model

Mentoring demonstrably increases the retention of undergraduate and graduate students and is moreover invaluable in shaping and nurturing academic careers. With the increasing diversification of the student body and of faculty ranks, there’s a clear need for culturally responsive mentoring across these dimensions.

Recognizing the low priority that academia has generally given to extending the practice of mentoring – let alone providing mentoring for Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and first generation students – this book offers a proven and holistic model of mentoring practice, developed in the field of psychology, that not only helps mentees navigate their studies and the academy but provides them with an understanding of the systemic and racist barriers they will encounter, validates their cultural roots and contributions, and attends to their personal development.

Further recognizing the demands that mentoring places on already busy faculty, the model addresses ways of distributing the work, inviting White and BIPOC faculty to participate, developing mentees’ capacities to mentor those that follow them, building a network of mentoring across generations, and adopting group mentoring. Intentionally planned and implemented, the model becomes self-perpetuating, building an intergenerational cadre of mentors who can meet the growing and continuing needs of the BIPOC community.

Opening with a review of the salient research on effective mentoring, and chapters that offer minority students’ views on what has worked for them, as well as reflections by faculty mentors, the core of the book describes the Freedom Train model developed by the godfather of Black psychology, Dr. Joseph White, setting out the principles and processes that inform the Multiracial / Multiethnic / Multicultural (M3) Mentoring Model that evolved from it, and offers an example of group mentoring.

While addressed principally to faculty interested in undertaking mentoring, and supporting minoritized students and faculty, the book also addresses Deans and Chairs and how they can create Freedom Train communities and networks by changing the cultural climate of their institutions, providing support, and modifying faculty evaluations and rewards that will in turn contribute to student retention as well as creative and productive scholarship and research.

This is a timely and inspiring book for anyone in the academy concerned with the success of BIPOC students and invigorating their department’s or school’s scholarship.

Jeanett Castellanos, Ph.D. is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Professor of Teaching at the University of California, Irvine in the School of Social Sciences. Her areas of research include BIPOC student coping and persistence, cultural values and identity, and well-being. Nationally, Dr. Castellanos is the recipient of the 2020 APA Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race) Distinguished Career in Service Award, the APA Division 12 (Clinical Psychology) Samuel M. Turner Mentorship Award, the 2012 NLPA Star Vega Community Service Award, and 2012 AAHEE Outstanding Support of Hispanics in Higher Education.

Dr. Joseph L. White enjoyed a distinguished career in the field of psychology and mental health as a teacher, mentor, administrator, clinical supervisor, writer, consultant, and practicing psychologist. He was professor emeritus of psychology and psychiatry at UC Irvine. A pioneer of the field of Black Psychology, he helped found the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi). White also helped found the California’s Educational Opportunities Program (EOP), which became a program implemented across the California State University campuses. He received the Distinguished Psychologist Award from the Association of Black Psychologists, the Citation of Achievement in Psychology and Community Service from President Clinton in 1994, and the Helms award for mentoring from the Winter Roundtable. In 2015, he was awarded a Presidential Citation by APA for his distinguished career as a psychologist devoted to social justice. In 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Psychological Association. The Godfather of Black Psychology joined the ancestors on Nov. 21, 2017 at the age of 84.

Veronica Franco is a doctoral student with a Counseling Psychology emphasis at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is originally from the Los Angeles area and received her B.A. in Sociology and Education from UC Irvine. After obtaining her B.A., she received her Master of Science degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2018. Her research interests include Latinx persistence patterns and experiences in higher education, Latinx protective factors, and BIPOC communities’ resilience, validation, well-being, and coping styles. Her clinical interests are in bilingual psychotherapy, culturally relevant services, and multicultural psychology with a social justice lens.