New faculty members - whether they come to Tufts with years of experience or straight from their doctoral work - are in a similar situation to incoming undergraduate freshman: the Hill is not a familiar place. The transition of new faculty members is aided by an orientation period, faculty mentors and department-specific practices.
Upon arrival at Tufts, new professors attend a series of training sessions to acquaint them with some of the University's procedures. "New junior and senior faculty members both went through the same orientation process: talking about corporate culture, procedures ... they even had a program in writing grants," said assistant economics professor Chih Ming Tan, who came to Tufts this fall.
"We met with the deans, President Bacow ... most of the day was student services, different organizations like the Academic Resource Center, benefits," said assistant psychology professor Sam Sommers, who came to the Hill in the fall of 2003. "The downside to the University-wide orientation is that there were always department-specific questions."
To deal with these field-specific questions, some departments have instituted a faculty mentor program that matches new faculty members with senior members of the department.
"This year the political science department started a mentoring program within the department for each new faculty member to have someone to take to lunch, ask questions, and get advice on what invitations to accept," Chair of the Political Science Department Vickie Sullivan said.
Sullivan said that Assistant Professor Deborah Schildkraut, who came to the department in the fall of 2004, was the first to participate in the new program. While Schildkraut had three years of teaching experience, Ioannis Evrigenis, who will be teaching political science at Tufts this coming fall, will be coming straight from doctoral work.
"Faculty come in at different points in their career, but I'd like to treat all equally," Sullivan said. "I would like to do [the mentoring program] for everyone."
Tan, who began teaching at the University this fall immediately after completing his graduate studies, has found his mentor from within the economics department to be a valuable resource.
"A junior faculty member needs a mentor on things like designing courses, the sequence of courses for a major," Tan said. "A great mentor knows the ins and outs, what the appropriate level to teach the students at is, little tricks of how to stay connected with the students and develop avenues of feedback."
Economics Professor Yannis Ioannides, Tan's department mentor, said the mentor program works to reinforce "communications that ought to be there already."
"A mentor relationship with a senior colleague is very different than the relationship with the chair of the department - they do not represent the University in an administrative capacity," Ioannides said.
Sullivan agreed, emphasizing the need for advice from someone in a non-evaluative position. "As chair of the department, I do serve as a mentor, but then that advice is coming from the chair," she said.
The demands of teaching are very different from those of graduate study, a distinction faculty who are fresh from graduate school notice. "In grad school, all I did all day was research," Tan said.
Balancing the new demands of teaching with individual research can take some adjustment. "I think that's a challenge for new faculty not necessarily used to teaching at a University where teaching is so highly valued, and also continuing to do research efficiently," Sommers said.
"Most people [coming from grad school] are unprepared for teaching: grad school prepares you for research, [and] new professors don't have the same stock of experience," Ioannides said. "Expectations regarding teaching are important, and mechanically they're a large part [of a professor's duties]. A new person starts from scratch."
Professors new to Tufts may already be very experienced in their field: Economics Professor Enrico Spolaore came to Tufts this fall from Brown University, with teaching experience at Boston College, Ohio State University and the University of Brussels. Although Spolaore did not take advantage of the mentoring program, he benefited from the advice of many of his colleagues.
"Almost everyone [in the department] has been a mentor in a way," Spolaore said. "This is a very collegial department - there is a lot of communication. The transition went smoothly."
"Mentoring was not as important for [Spolaore], because he is a mature scholar," Ioannides said.
Not all departments have an internal mentor program, but new professors in general find other faculty welcoming. Lecturer Awad Halabi was not assigned a mentor by the history department when he came in fall of 2003, but he said, "I was lucky that many people extended invitations - that facilitated my integration into the University."
Departments may also ease the transition for new faculty in other ways - in Tan's case, for example, allowing him to teach only one course his first semester as a professor. "The department was very understanding and let me teach courses I was familiar with," he said. "They let me teach one course my first semester. This semester I was able to repeat that course and teach a new one, which spreads the load a bit in terms of preparation."
A University-wide mentoring program supported by the office of the Dean of the Colleges went into effect this year. The program matches new faculty with mentors who are members of another department.
"The official mentoring system at Tufts, which is new and promoted by the dean, seems to be working extremely well," Ioannides said.
Tan said that the University-wide mentoring program was especially useful for "junior professors who do not want to talk to someone within the department, who will likely be evaluating them in a few years' time."
Schildkraut, who came to Tufts from Oberlin College, participated in the dean's faculty mentor program in addition to that of the political science department. "What I find the mentors useful for is finding out things I didn't think to ask about: informal norms of how things work, how components of the University relate to each other," Schildkraut said.
"Even though I'm second year faculty, I do have a mentor, and I think it's great," said Sommers of his mentorship with Dean of Undergraduate Education Jim Glaser. "I was already here when the program started, but they allowed me in. It's been very helpful."
Halabi also came to Tufts the year before the official mentoring program began, but agreed that whether through a formal mentoring program, department mentors, or more informal collegial outreach, having a mentor is helpful. "I think you need to find someone to usher you in," he said. "Each university is distinct and unique."
