Facilitating Engineering Faculty Mentorship with a Focus on the Entrepreneurial Mindset

This work-in-progress paper describes a large-scale, multi-university grant initiative aimed at facilitating engineering faculty mentorship with a focus on using the entrepreneurial mindset as a way to instigate, connect, and contribute impactful mentoring within engineering. Research in the fields of mentorship and faculty development demonstrate the need for formal and informal mentorship programs to ensure faculty success. This is particularly true for traditionally marginalized groups, for whom the formal mentorship model may be more beneficial. Faculty mentorship programs are nascent in most engineering programs across the country. Evaluation of mentorship models across higher education settings will inform the future development of evidence-based programs. This paper describes the structure of a strategic effort to facilitate engineering faculty mentorship and provides selected examples of mentorship programs that have been developed at individual universities as part of the larger project. We outline the benefits and barriers to the development of successful mentorship programs and identify the structures, supports, and key takeaways from the project to date. Insights provide emergent, strategic oversight and looks ahead to the support and resources that can be beneficial for universities to develop their own engineering faculty mentorship programs.