Mentoring Program Offers Helping Hand
When associate professor of journalism Tracy Everbach began working at UNT, journalism professor Sheri Broyles frequently visited her
office.
“Every day, she’d be, ‘What are you working on?’” Everbach said. “You really need someone like that.”
Everbach and Broyles, along with Kimi King, associate professor of political science, and Linda Marshall, psychology professor, have set up an organization to provide that kind of mentoring – The Women’s Faculty Network. More than 100 women attended the first meeting in the fall and members have returned for more events to exchange ideas and answer questions.
The organization is one of 19 teams and individual faculty members who received funding from the Faculty Mentoring Program, created last year by the Office for Faculty Success, to promote mentoring.
Women's Network Fosters Mentoring and Faculty Success
The Women’s Faculty Network (WFN) kicked off the fall semester on Oct.5 with a luncheon featuring Stories from the Road and Speed Mentoring sessions. The event brought together 106 women from around the university in one room, where many of them met each other for the first time. Funded through a Mentoring Grant from the Provost’s Office, WFN is designed for tenured and tenure-track women moving through the ranks from assistant professor to associate to full. It’s all about helping women connect with each other. Amy Murrell, an associate professor of psychology, said she welcomed the opportunity for women faculty members to share experiences at the mentoring luncheon.
“I think what I enjoyed the most was getting to be in a room full of women who acknowledged that sometimes there is a cut-throat feel to our work, but that doesn't have to mean anything,” Murrell said. “Expectations really are different between the genders in academe, and we can work together to change things.”