Source: Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, Volume 15, Issue 1 February 2007, pages 57 - 72
Numerous studies of college and university faculty have shown that women have fewer mentors and face greater professional isolation, slower rates of promotion, and increased likelihood of leaving an institution before gaining tenure than do their male counterparts.
Comparable problems confront women in both national and international corporations as they seek career advancement.
To address these problems, many organizations have created formal mentoring programs, which have achieved varying degrees of success.
This article presents an instrumental case study of the implementation of a new mentoring model in a university context.
The model, strategic collaboration, builds on recent research describing mentoring as a network activity.
The collaborative, peer-oriented structure of the approach, which removes many of the problems inherent in traditional mentoring programs while also retaining their benefits, suggests that it can be particularly beneficial for women seeking further career advancement.