Mentoring Faculty: Impact, Dyads vs. Groups, and Gender

Through a quantitative analysis using a cross-sectional survey design, we compared two faculty mentoring programmes (individual and group) that have run for more than 10 years at the Centre for Academic Leadership at the University of Ottawa. We did so to share the lessons with other higher education institutions that are looking at initiating or improving support for faculty members. The impact of mentoring, gathered through programme evaluation questionnaires was found to be largely positive: 93% of the 170 respondents were satisfied with their mentoring experience, and 97% agreed that they would recommend mentoring to their colleagues. Our analysis showed that group mentoring was more effective than one-on-one mentoring, and that women faculty members were not as satisfied with mentoring as their male colleagues.