This study looks at the participation of research faculty in faculty mentoring and other advising and coaching initiatives designed to foster the sharing of knowledge on how to win research grants. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as what percentage and what kind of academic departments have mentoring programs? How successful are such programs? Who participates in these programs? As mentors and as mentees. How many and which faculty members are compensated as mentors? Or receive reduced teaching loads or other inducements to serve as mentors? What percentage of grants are first shown to departmental panels or other review mechanisms prior to submission to funding sources? The report also covers the mentor-mentee matching process; survey participants comment on their role in this and other processes, and discuss their experiences as mentors or mentees.
Just a few of the many findings of this 118-page report are:
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The mean percentage of grant proposals submitted for departmental review is 16.25%, with a median of 0%, indicating that for many respondents, no submissions are reviewed.
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A significant portion of respondents (42.59%) report that their department chairs are not really involved in the mentor/mentee matching process.
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Only 5.29% report high involvement from department chairs.- History/Social Science/Geography/Area Studies (12.50%) and Nursing/Allied Health (12.00%) report the highest percentage rates faculty who have received workload reductions in exchange for mentoring responsibilities.
The data in the report is based on a survey of 378 higher education faculty drawn from a stratified universe of faculty emphasizing STEM faculty. Data is broken out by numerous institutional and personal variables including college or university type, size, and public/private status, as well as by personal respondent level of lifetime grant receipts, age, gender, work title and academic field. Data is broken out for 20 subject areas, and separately for research universities, doctoral institutions, BA and community colleges.