Making Connections Mentoring Handbook Published by USU's Empower Teaching Open Access Series

Utah State University Uintah Basin professor David Law and Nora Domínguez, director of the Mentoring Institute at the University of New Mexico, are the editors of the new comprehensive handbook Making Connections: A Handbook for Effective Formal Mentoring Programs in Academia.

This handbook is available electronically in Pressbooks. The associated website contains podcasts about the book's 28 chapters, hosted by the Millennials Mentor Tamara Thorpe. Fifty-one mentoring scholars from the United States and the United Kingdom wrote the book's chapters.

"Our primary goal in creating this handbook was to help academic mentoring programs move from an ad hoc culture to one of intentionality and effectiveness," Law said. "Our book makes a unique and needed contribution to the mentoring field, focusing solely on mentoring in academia. The book's chapters provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for those wishing to develop, implement, evaluate, sustain and fund mentorship at their university. The audience for this book is practitioners, university leaders and researchers, with a primary focus on novice program coordinators."

This book has four parts. Part I contains four chapters that position the reader to understand the origins and evolution of the mentoring arena in academia.

Part II includes 11 chapters to help practitioners, researchers and university leadership design, implement, evaluate and fund effective mentoring programs.

Part III provides four case studies on undergraduate students as mentees, two on graduate students as mentees, three for mentoring faculty, and two on mentoring university staff.

Part IV, which focuses on future directions of mentoring in academia, has a chapter and case study devoted to networked approaches.

"This handbook is a must-read for anyone who wants to design an effective mentoring initiative in academia," said renowned mentoring expert Kathy Kram. "The contributors include scholars and practitioners who have examined the challenges of creating high-quality mentoring experiences in highly complex settings."

"I have witnessed the profound impact of mentoring on the retention and achievement of our valued students, faculty, and staff," said David Woolstenhulme, Utah Commissioner of Higher Education. "I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to improve retention rates and enhance professional development within their university community."

The book is a collaborative institutional effort by the USU Empowering Teaching Open Access Book Series and UNM's Mentoring Institute. Authors included several USU contributors: David Law, USU Uintah Basin; Monica Castañeda-Kessel, grant development manager for USU College of Engineering; Mike Christiansen, USU Uintah Basin; Greg Dart, senior associate vice president for USU Eastern; Jennifer Grewe, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, Kim Hales, USU Uintah Basin; Andy Harris, USU Southwest; Harrison Kleiner, associate vice provost for general education; Jim LaMuth, USU Uintah Basin; Neal Legler, director of the Center for Innovative Design and Instruction; Hannah Lewis, USU Eastern; Jeff Spears, USU Eastern; Nicole Vouvalis, human research protections executive director; and James Y. Taylor, senior associate vice president for USU Uintah Basin.

"I'm excited that we've published Making Connections to highlight the excellent work across the USU faculty and staff and also as a chance to disseminate the expertise of leading experts in the field of mentoring," said Travis Thurston, director of Teaching Excellence for USU's Office of Empowering Teaching Excellence.