An Addendum to the Statement on the Role of the Mentor

January 14, 1978

To:  Administrative Council, Associate Deans

From:  John Jacobson, VPAA

Subject  An Addendum to the Statement on the Role of the Mentor

For some time there has been a request for a statement on the subject of "mentors working outside their own disciplines." I would like your advice on this effort to speak to that concern. After receiving your comments I will redraft the statement and refer it to APLPC for their comment and action.

Empire State College faculty often mentor students whose contracts and degree programs include the study of topics outside the range of the faculty member's discipline or disciplines. An essential feature of effective mentoring is good professional judgment about when to rely upon one's own knowledge of the topics under study and when to bring colleagues, adjunct faculty and tutors into the process. It is important for a faculty member at Empire State College to have a sufficiently broad range of unquestioned professional competence to be able to carry a fair share of the College's mentoring responsibilities. It is also important that the faculty member have and exercise good judgment about when to bring others with requisite professional qualifications into the contracting, degree program planning or assessment process.