麻豆传媒

Why mutual mentoring?

Unlike traditional top-down mentoring, mutual mentoring encourages:

• Collaborative Networks: Building non-hierarchical, collaborative relationships where each participant shares expertise and experience.
• Reciprocal Relationships: Forming connections that provide mutual benefits, fostering shared learning and professional development.

Research indicates that mutual mentoring leads to increased research productivity, more effective teaching, broader professional networks, and improved career advancement opportunities. It also nurtures social connections, offering guidance, encouragement, and constructive feedback throughout a faculty member's career.

Grant Opportunities
FARE offers two types of grants:

1. Microgrants: Up to $1,000 for individual faculty or librarians to develop a mutual mentoring project, involving up to two additional participants from within or outside 麻豆传媒.
2. Team Grants: Up to $6,500 for teams of four 麻豆传媒 faculty or librarians to conduct a mutual mentoring project. Additional members can be included from within or outside the university.

Eligibility

• Tenure-track faculty and librarians
• Non-tenure-track faculty and librarians

For team grants, at least four members of the team must meet the above eligibility criteria.

There are numerous challenges to professional success and well-being that can be used to generate ideas for mentoring groups; below we have listed some of these. Proposals will need to include one or more of these themes to be considered or awarded.

1) Support network for new faculty: Understanding the academic culture of departments, schools/colleges, and the institution; identifying resources to support research and teaching; and creating a trusted network of junior and senior colleagues.

2) Understanding promotion: Better understanding of the tenure and promotion processes for all ranks (promotion to associate or full professor ranks, to senior lecturer or senior lecturer II, librarian promotions, etc.); learning more about the criteria for evaluating research and teaching performance; finding support in developing the promotion dossier; soliciting feedback on the quality and quantity of work through the annual faculty review, etc.

3) Developing a support network: Forging career-enhancing relationships with faculty (at 麻豆传媒 or outside the institution) who share similar interests, challenges, and/or opportunities. Networks designed to support underrepresented faculty, mid-career faculty, and faculty interested in future leadership roles.

4) Excelling at research: Developing a research/writing plan, identifying sources of internal and external funding, soliciting feedback on manuscripts and grant proposals, setting up and running a successful laboratory, or identifying outside scholars who could be external reviewers.

5) Excelling at teaching: Finding support for teaching, such as developing new courses, pedagogical methods, technologies, interdisciplinary curricula, or supporting the learning of all students.

6) Strategies for well-being: Prioritizing and/or balancing teaching, research, and service; establishing short-term and long-term goals; finding a time management system that works for you; work-life integration; attending to quality-of-life issues such as dual careers, caretaking, and affordable housing.

7) Building interdisciplinary teams: Reaching out to faculty across campus with similar scholarly interests who are in different fields; getting together to exchange ideas; for existing interdisciplinary teams, sharing ideas on finding funding and team collaboration; connecting with expertise on campus or off to help improve your collaboration.

8) Building belonging and connection: Building relationships, whether they be within identity group(s), with those who share a career stage or role, or between those within a particular unit (a department, a discipline, a college); bringing together individuals across difference(s) to promote communication and understanding and to bridge social divides.

9) Engaging the public: Co-learning and sharing best practices to disseminate scholarship to the public, conduct public outreach, and/or engage communities with scholarly work. Gathering to learn a new method (participatory research; community engaged research); connecting with scholars who excel at engaging the public.

Applications are due by April 11, 2025.

Applicants are encouraged to attend the Mutual Mentoring Grant Information Session on February 24, 25, or March 5 to learn more about the program and application process.

The application requires:

1) Cover page for Team or Micro Grant

2) Responses to Project Narrative totaling approximately 2,000 words

3) Budget with justification using provided Excel template outlining your budget items

For questions, contact:  FARE@wichita.edu

Project Narrative (please respond to ALL questions):

1. What is the mentoring challenge you seek to address (see list on next page)?  Why is it important to address this challenge?  How will this mentoring project impact the faculty member(s) professional goals at this particular juncture in their career(s)?  (500 words)
2. What are the goals of this project? What specific activities will occur to support the intended outcomes? Describe your plan to complete the project within one year. (500 words)
3. The mutual mentoring model is a non-hierarchical collaborative network comprised of people who provide specific areas of knowledge and experience and encourages the development of mutually beneficial relationships. How does the project employ the mutual mentoring model and create new networks?  (250 words)
4. How do you plan to sustain the mentorship relationships and benefits of the project after the grant funding ends? (250 words)
5. How does this project support inclusive excellence and/or belonging among the mutual mentoring participants or on campus more broadly? (250 words)
6. Please list the role, participation, and commitments expected from each team member of this mutual mentoring project. If members have already participated in the development of this project, please indicate their involvement.  Other forms of engagement can include but are not limited to: attending the Mutual Mentoring Information Session, specific contributions to this application, each member鈥檚 commitments to the mentoring activities proposed and/or availability to engage in the mentoring projects during the grant year. (250 words)

Please list all of your estimated expenditures in the Excel template (download, rename, save, and submit with your narrative).

When developing your budget consider the following:

• Budget period is May 15, 2025-May 14, 2026
• Make sure to align expenses with the activities of your proposal narrative.
• Provide reasonable detail and justification for each item.
• Include only financial requests that cannot be met through other means, such as department, college, or alternative areas for funding.
• Personnel expenses should cover only 麻豆传媒 students or graduate students who are directly working with you to execute this project.
• Non-personnel expenses can include travel costs (for faculty member or mentoring partners), honoraria for non-麻豆传媒 partners, conference fees, consulting costs for off-campus editors and coaches, meeting refreshments, and/or supplies and materials.
• Catering/food expenses should not be more than 50% of the proposed budget.
• Follow all 麻豆传媒 business and travel expense rules for allowable expenses, such as sole source contracts, travel per diems, or assistantship rates.
• Equipment purchase is not an allowable expense.

Send complete application (Team or Micro-grant cover page, narrative and budget) to FARE@wichita.edu.  The deadline for submitting applications is April 11, 2025 at 5 PM.  For further information consult the website or contact FARE@wichita.edu

 

• Strong case for a mentorship need for faculty/librarians that differs from mentoring activities normally supported or provided by a department, school/college, or program.
• Compelling argument for how using the mutual mentoring model for project activities will fulfill faculty member(s) professional development goals at this particular juncture in their career.
• Proposed outcomes and plan are detailed clearly, and there is alignment between intended outcomes and proposed mentoring activities.
• Project aims to create new networks by deploying the mutual mentoring model.
• Proposal activities are appropriate and can realistically be accomplished within one year.
• Budget is reasonable, and requests are clearly justified.
• Sustainability of mentoring relationships/project impact will also be considered.
• Roles of each core team member clearly identified.

Priority consideration to Assistant Professors (STEM fields).

• Awards announced by the end of April; Award duration: May 15, 2025- May 14, 2026
• Funding is contingent upon availability of NSF funding.
• Gathering of awardee cohort to launch projects, exchange ideas (May or June)
• FARE office available to help you launch and give advice throughout the year. Can advertise and will support in other ways, where possible.
• Upon conclusion of the grant year, awardees agree to provide 500-word summary of their activities, respond to survey, and provide final budget of grant expenses.
• We may also request your team to present their project at annual FARE Office Mutual Mentoring Spotlight event.

Q: Can I apply as both a member of a team grant mentoring application and also apply as an individual for a micro grant? 

A: You may apply as part of a team grant application and also submit a micro individual grant application during the same round. However, given that the Mutual Mentoring Program is highly competitive, the review committee will consider equity of distribution of resources among faculty applicants. 

 

Q: Is mutual mentoring grant support available to full professors? Lecturers? Librarians?

A: Tenure-track faculty, non-tenure-track faculty on continuing appointments, and librarians on continuing-track appointments are eligible for the MM grant program.

 

Q: Can non-continuous appointment faculty apply for a grant or be a part of a team?

A:  Non-tenure-track faculty without a continuous appointment are not eligible for micro-grants. They can partner with tenure-track and/or non-tenure track-faculty with continuing appointments as a mentoring partner on a team grant or as a core team member if the team already has four faculty who are on the tenure track or have continuing appointments. 

 

Q: What is the distinction between the core team members and mentoring partners?  

A: The core team comprises 麻豆传媒 faculty who are invested in the mutual mentoring project, have participated in its development, and will engage throughout the project year in its administration. Eligible core team members are tenure-track faculty, non-tenure-track faculty on continuing appointments, and librarians on continuing appointments. The core team comprises four or more faculty and may include a mix of types and ranks of faculty as long as the majority of the individuals on the core team meet the eligibility criteria. Mentoring partners do not play as key a role in the implementation of the project. They also can be faculty from other institutions.  

 

Q: Is it okay not to know the exact person we're looking to consult with as a mentor when constructing the budget?

A: Your application does not need to include a mentor's confirmation that they will participate in the project. It is, however, important to demonstrate in your proposal that you have clear mentoring objectives and plans for addressing those areas. You may include potential mentors who you believe would participate in your project.

 

Q: What can I ask for in the budget?  What expenses are okay?

A: All expenses must follow the guidelines of the Wichita State Travel Handbook (i.e., 麻豆传媒 only allows non-travel reimbursement as an exception, does not allow paying for faculty time, etc.). Review your budget with your department's bookkeeper before submission. Also, MM grants do not fund student research assistants nor do they provide additional compensation for faculty members. However, MM awards have provided funding for student hours when assisting a team with administering the MM project, such as scheduling meetings.  

 

Q: Can emeritus faculty be solicited for consultation services or be part of my mentoring network?

A: Yes, emeritus faculty members can be included as mentoring partners, but they can only be compensated for their participation if they have not been at 麻豆传媒 for over a year.