Mentoring Women in Higher Education (Weisbard, 1996)

[This bibliography is number 75 in the series “Wisconsin Bibliographies in Women’s Studies” published by the University of Wisconsin System Women’s Studies Librarian’s Office, 430 Memorial Library, 728 State Street, Madison, WI 53706.]

Women college students fresh from high school, returning “non-traditional” students, new faculty, and women entering higher education administration are all being helped through a variety of techniques designed to recruit and retain them in their programs and assist them in their career paths. Mentoring is one such technique that has received a great deal of attention in the research literature. This bibliography points to successful models of mentorship and to research analysis on the mentoring of women. While definitions vary, a mentor is generally someone already experienced in a role new to a mentee. The mentor guides, advises, and is supportive of the mentee. Some studies have found differences from the traditional male model of mentoring when women are involved, suggesting that informality and friendship are more characteristic of successful mentoring of women. Other researchers examine issues that arise in cross-gender mentoring.

The first section lists recent citations on mentoring women in colleges and universities. This section begins with general material on mentoring women in higher education, followed by sub-sections that apply to mentoring faculty, students, or administrators. These in turn are followed by citations to mentoring in particular fields. Generally excluded from this section are citations to research that did not specifically focus on gender factors or where mentoring is only one of an array of issues addressed. The second section selectively lists resources on mentoring women outside higher education, but with application within the academy. This section draws particularly on studies from education and from the corporate world. A third section lists selected general resources on mentoring.