Mentoring Early Career Faculty in Geography: Issues and Strategies*

Abstract

Early career geography faculty in colleges and universities in the United States are positioned at the leading edge of a challenging period of change in higher education. Demands brought on by new technologies, new administrative and research pressures, and an increasingly competitive campus climate, may make it difficult to balance teaching, research, and service while also trying to maintain a personal life. This article argues that many geographers could benefit from the support of mentoring. Using ideas generated by participants in the Association of American Geographers' recent project, the Geography Faculty Development Alliance, I provide both pragmatic and personal suggestions for establishing these all-important mentoring relationships to help cope with the pressures facing early career faculty. *The author thanks Kenneth Foote, Michal Levasseur, Stanley Brunn, and Susan Hume for their inspiration and guidance on this paper and the more than forty panelists at AAG and NCGE mentoring sessions (2001–2004) for their invaluable contributions to early career geographers and to this paper. Of particular note were the written comments of these experienced mentors and new faculty: Robert Bednarz, Aileen Buckley, Mona Domosh, Reginald Golledge, Jennifer Helzer, Karen Lemke, Arlene Rengert, Fred Shelley, Janet Smith, Michael Solem, and Peter Walker.