Building Community: Effective Use of Cohort Model and Mentoring Within Higher Education

Overview: This interactive workshop will provide the audience with tangible resources and various activities to implement strategies to foster a professional community while leveraging opportunities to enhance pedagogy, improve student outcomes, and advance scholastic achievement.Proposal text: As colleges and universities struggle to recruit and maintain tenure-track and clinical junior faculty, administrators and senior faculty must create development opportunities that foster a sense of connection while creating growth opportunities in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service. Feelings of isolation, imposter syndrome, and inconsistent mentorship can create a level of emotional distress for junior faculty which further impacts attrition rates (Azevedo et al., 2021; Kennett & Lin, 2019; Mbuagbaw et al., 2020). In response to this challenge, many institutions have established academic career advancement initiatives that foster scholarly achievement and teaching excellence (Guraya & Chen, 2019). These initiatives are often actualized through cohort models. A cohort is a group of individuals with a shared identity (ies), experiences, and/or common goals. Additionally, faculty experiences cohort models can cultivate a sense of community and further satisfy the “needs for connectedness and career achievement" (Olesova & Campbell, 2019, p.194). Mentoring is also a critical lynchpin for any initiatives or programming incorporating a cohort approach. Formal and informal approaches to mentoring have proven effective with positive outcomes (Weaver et al., 2016). Furthermore, peer mentorship underscores the presence of valuable resources within campus communities (Debelius & Mooney, 2020; Gevertz, 2017). As such, researchers note a positive correlation between faculty mentorship and professional development (Minshew et al., 2021; Diamond et al., 2019). Moreover, these professional development opportunities through cohort models and mentoring aid in the development of faculty at every level (Feldman et al., 2010) which may impact faculty recruitment, promotion, and retention at every level.

The purpose of this interactive workshop is three-fold. First, the facilitators will share their lived experiences as participants in university-led and designed cohort and mentorship initiatives. The facilitators will share their lived experiences as junior faculty participating in two cohort model initiatives at a predominately white institution. Community Service and Service Learning is a cohort model where faculty engage in learning, service, and research through the creation of partnerships within the university and surrounding communities. The Teaching Fellow mentoring model as fellows mentor and advise faculty on high-impact practices in teaching, teaching approaches, strategies, implementation, and provide professional development for teaching and assist with other teaching-related initiatives. Facilitators will share processes for tangible outcomes from programs such as research, publication, and presentation opportunities as well as strategies for maximizing cross-collaborative projects. Second, facilitators will provide resources to leverage these experiences to improve teaching practices and student outcomes. Finally, facilitators will share resources for best practices for the creation of formal and/or information cohort and mentoring communities.