Learning the Ropes Together: New Faculty Co-Mentoring in a “Mandatory” Community of Practice

Abstract

We analyze the outcomes of a mandatory, research-based, semester-long new faculty development program that serves as an extended orientation to the university. Although the program is designed like a “course” and not like a faculty learning community (FLC) as many new faculty development programs are, we discovered that communities of practice (CoPs) arose as new faculty discussed expectations, learned about the wide variety of departmental and institutional processes and practices, and got to know one another. Moreover, we also noted that peer-to-peer mentoring was a significant feature of participants’ experience. We argue that although this model of new faculty development does not adhere to the usual requirements of an FLC or CoP, it nonetheless fulfilled the goals of offering new faculty support from multiple sources, fostering new faculty confidence, and enhancing their job performance and satisfaction.