Lessons Learned about Mentoring Junior Faculty in Higher Education

Mentoring junior faculty in higher education is often thought of as an easy task that every tenured faculty member and college administrator thinks they can effectively do. Most tenured faculty think they know the “tricks of the trade” because they have successfully gone through the process themselves. Most administrators also think they know what to do because they have seen or gained “insight” from viewing the successful and unsuccessful tenure applicants over the last few years. This “lived experience” of tenured faculty and administrators, however, may not be the current “lived experience” of junior faculty in higher education today