Support for new academic leaders
As part of its mission to provide training and support, Concordia’s Centre for Academic Leadership is launching a peer-mentoring program for newly appointed department chairs and college principals.
“This is one of our main initiatives,” explains the centre’s Executive Director Dominic Peltier-Rivest. “We want to provide proactive, one-on-one support for our department chairs, to help them exercise strong leadership and put it into practice.”
Peer mentors are chosen based on their own current or past experience as department chairs or college principals, upon recommendation of their deans. As Peltier-Rivest points out, it’s also important that they come from a different faculty than their mentees.
“We feel that right now new department chairs have a good base of support within their own Faculty,” he says. “By requiring that the mentor be from a different Faculty, we hope that it’s someone the mentee can relate with, and exchange on a more personal and confidential basis without any fear what they say will become known and affect their strategic position.”
The mentor’s job will be to provide information about the different responsibilities related to the role of the department chair, but also to provide tips on how to deal with the added stress involved with the appointment, and where to go for help.
“The mentors will help them acquire those little tips and tricks needed to transition,” Peltier-Rivest says. “The first year is always very challenging, because they receive loads of new information and the pressure is very high. It has to be someone who’s been there before, and knows where to go for resources, for official help, or to find out the official stance on a particular issue.
So far, the centre has identified nine new department chairs and college principals for the upcoming academic year. Peltier-Rivest says the individuals who have been approached so far to serve as mentors for these new leaders have all responded positively.
“All of them said yes right away,” he says. “They were all very honoured that they were asked to serve as a mentor to one of their fellow junior department chairs.”
The first meeting between the mentees and mentors will be coordinated by the centre, and will take place at the end of August or the beginning of September. After the first meeting, the mentor will be expected to get in touch with his or her mentee at least once a month. The program is designed to place the onus on the mentor to ensure that meetings occur and that the program serves its stated purpose.
When the peer-mentoring program completes its first cycle at the end of the academic year, the centre will ask participants to fill out an anonymous questionnaire, in order to determine the program’s usefulness and see how it can be improved.
“We’re trying to evaluate all of our initiatives, and we’ll make adjustments as needed,” Peltier-Rivest says.
The Centre for Academic Leadership also runs a series of workshops throughout the year, designed to support department chairs and college principals in their new roles. This year, the centre will add two new workshops to its offerings: Negotiation and Persuasion Skills in the fall semester, and Financial Accountability in the winter semester.
Related Links:
• Centre for Academic Leadership
• Peer-Mentoring Program
• “Centre for Academic Leadership supports current and future academic leaders” — NOW, May 29, 2012