The Role of Mentoring in the Development of Minority Faculty in the Texas State Higher Education System

Research Focus. The purpose of this study was to explore the role that mentoring played in the professional development of minority faculty in the Texas State higher education system. Research Methods. A phenomenological qualitative research design was employed for this study. Data was collected using open ended in-depth interviews with eight minority faculty purposefully selected from across the Texas State institutions of higher learning. Research Results/Findings. Minority faculty in the Texas State higher education system often experienced cultural taxation, marginalization, discrimination, isolation, and lack of mentoring. The study indicated that mentorship boots minority faculty support, retention, promotion, empowerment, trust, accountability, and increases self-esteem. This study revealed that mentoring played crucial roles in the form of helping early minority faculty negotiate barriers, manage time, and commitments, learn and understand the written and unwritten rules of their institutions. The study also found that most minority faculty spent most of their time preparing lecture notes and not enough time for scholarship. Conclusions from Research. There had not been any study on the role of mentoring in the development of minority faculty in the Texas State higher education system. To address this void in scholarly literature, I explored minority faculty experience to understand the role mentoring played in their professional development. My study employed phenomenological methodology to develop descriptive themes. Eight minority faculty who identified as having been mentored were purposefully selected and interviewed to understand the phenomenon. My face-to-face in-depth interviews with the eight participants produced rich data. Finding from my study revealed three themes pertaining to how minority faculty experience and understand mentorship in their individual college and university campuses: role mentoring played, challenges encountered, and advice for prospective and existing minority educators. Participants who have experienced and understood mentorship expressed that minority faculty need mentorship in other to move on to a more professional level in their career. They suggested that mentoring programs be provided to boost minority faculty training, support, retention, promotion, empowerment in all Texas State higher educational institutions