Mentoring Center members ready to help
<p>The newly minted Ph.D. has just landed her first job as an assistant professor at a large university in the Southwest.</p><separator></separator><p>She has been teaching as a graduate student for several years, but now, in her first tenure-track position, she is unsure about several aspects of her job. She doesn't really want to talk to her dean, nor is she eager to confide in her colleagues.</p><separator></separator><p>In the past, she probably would keep her questions and doubts to herself, or use her husband or a friend as a sounding board. But now, if she's at ASU, she can turn to the Emeritus College Mentoring Center.</p><separator></separator><p>ASU's Emeritus College, now some 350 members strong, opened its Mentoring Center last year, and this year continues to recruit new volunteer mentors and expand awareness of the center.</p><separator></separator><p>It's a place where any faculty member - or graduate or undergraduate student - can go to get a little operational and career help, anonymously.</p><separator></separator><p>The volunteer mentors, noted Center co-directors Quentin Bogart and Howard Voss, have "jumped through all the hoops and can help those who don't understand the academic environment."</p><separator></separator><p>"There are a lot of pressures on people today," Bogart added, "especially if you're new to the situation."<br />Anyone seeking mentoring may make his or her request through the Emeritus College, (480) 965-0002. All meetings take place in an open, windowed office within the Emeritus College headquarters on the lower level of Old Main.</p><separator></separator><p>"We will consider providing a mentor to anyone in the University community who walks through the door," said Bogart. "But we're not a clinical counseling center."</p><separator></separator><p>Nor will the mentors tutor students, serve on thesis or dissertation committees, or "usurp any of the responsibilities normally assigned to regular faculty members," noted Voss.</p><separator></separator><p>"We can help a person think through things and understand procedures. We have sufficient expertise to help with any procedural or operational problem. We don't intend to do what departments do."</p><separator></separator><p>Those serving as mentors also gain from the experience, Bogart and Voss added.</p><separator></separator><p>Voss, who taught physics to large lecture classes and to small physics major classes, said he misses going to his classes. "I retired a few years ago and I miss meeting with the students," he said.</p><separator></separator><p>Bogart said he wishes that he had had a mentor when he began his university career teaching classes in educational leadership and policy. "I would have liked to have someone work with me on collaborative efforts," he said.<br />Voss was fortunate because his department head took him under his wing, and "we became fast friends," Voss said.</p><separator></separator><p>Nearly 20 emeriti faculty have joined the Mentoring Center so far, representing such far-flung disciplines as mathematics, human behavior, history, theoretical physics, psychology, medicine, Chinese language, chemistry, biochemistry and library studies.</p><separator></separator><p>Collectively, they have jumped through a lot of hoops. And, to use another cliché, they know the university ropes - and they're ready to help untangle them for those who don't.</p>