Week note, October ??? (Oh what the heck—last week!)

This was mentoring week for me: 

• I had two meetings with my mentoring partners, faculty who are new to James Madison University and participate in our New Faculty Academy.

• I co-facilitated, with my colleague Bob Kolodinsky, a new workshop on how to get mentoring relationships off to a good start, on Wednesday and Thursday. I thought it went well: Bob and I (but mostly Bob!) managed to prepare a workshop that combined ideas from the mentoring literature (Bob works on getting certified as a coach) and tips and tricks for mentors with some applied activities. We advertised the workshop a bit late—only two weeks ago—but got good participation from mentors in our New Faculty Academy program, and from department chairs who want to improve their departmental mentoring. It looks like we may be able to repeat the workshop in individual departments!

• To go with the theme, this week’s “reading” (during my commute, read to me by Tom, one of the voices on my iPhone) was Lois Zachary’s The Mentor’s Guide. A good resource, particularly for hands-on activities for mentors. I used Zachary’s four-phase model of the mentoring process in the workshop; I think it is useful for mentors to realize that the mentoring relationship changes.

Music: The New York Times has recently been highlighting the London Jazz scene (with an embarrassing tweet to boot, which turns out to be simply an unattributed quote—or paraphrase?—of Femi Koleoso, one of the featured musicians). In any case, the music is good stuff. Listen to the Ezra Collective (ft. Femi Kolas), Nubya Garcia, and other artists mentioned in the article.