What Can the Humanities Teach Us about Good Mentorship?

Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, director of faculty mentoring and coaching programs at Duke University, writes on issues of coaching, mentorship, graduate education, and faculty development for venues like The Chronicle of Higher Education. She is currently completing a book, How to Mentor a PhD (Princeton University Press). Wisdom gave a keynote lecture titled “What Can the Humanities Teach Us about Good Mentorship?” as part of the Graduate Humanities Summer Institute and the annual CHPS Writing Retreat.

Drawing on material from her forthcoming book, Wisdom discussed how humanistic inquiry might help us think about effective practices of mentorship for both graduate students and junior faculty in the 21st century university. She also gave two coaching workshops titled “Taking Stock, Moving Forward” for graduate students and junior humanities faculty.

“I appreciated Dr. Wisdom’s invitation to rethink how to mentor Ph.D. students. I wonder how institutions can support mentors as they engage in the more involved mentorship practices that Dr. Wisdom described. Being fully present with mentees, helping them to learn how to solve their own problems, guiding them as they construct their professional lives alongside their personal lives—this is time-consuming, if also very rewarding, work. It is also not obvious how to do it well. What kinds of resources and supports can institutions offer to support and encourage better mentorship practices? What kind of community can humanities faculty build around the shared challenge of ushering grad students into their professional lives after the Ph.D.?”

— Jaime Ahlberg, Philosophy

“Maria Wisdom’s talk put forth mentoring as situated, broadly conceived, and activated in myriad ways. Through the research and experiences Dr. Wisdom shared, we see mentoring as critical to a thriving scholarly community and not merely a task to be completed. In acknowledging the complexity of academia, we also recognize a mentoring ecosystem as dynamic, active, and engaging many contributors throughout a career trajectory. Prioritizing transparency, open communication, using our strengths, and modeling essential skills are well within our grasp. A lively discussion and provocative workshops followed Dr. Wisdom’s talk.”

— María Rogal, School of Art + Art History