About Us
The Mentoring Project reflects CWPA's commitment to developing programs and initiatives that draw future and current WPAs into a pipeline of support. Through our Mentor Match Program, the Mentoring Blog, and the Professional Development Archive, we will provide resources for WPAs at all stages of their careers.
We are especially aware that our organization and field lacks the genuine diversity represented in our institutions by our students. As such, it is important that we actively seek to support WPAs of color and those from other underrepresented groups. To that end, we will strive to offer mentoring opportunities for individuals who do WPA work at whatever rank or status, with the understanding of how identity matters as WPAs shape the rhetorical and institutional contours of their particular programs.
Mentor Match Program
"Effective mentors are much more than advisors or teachers. They are role models, consultants, problem solvers, and supporters. They provide timely and constructive feedback, career guidance, professional contacts, sources of information about research grants and fellowship and job opportunities, and letters of recommendation throughout your professional career.
A mentor can make a world of difference." (Columbia University: The Power of Mentoring)
Seeking a mentor is a smart thing to do. Being a mentor is paying it forward to the future of our profession. The CWPA Mentoring Match program is designed to bring mentoring to those who request it and to provide opportunities for more experienced WPAs to offer their time and care to mentoring. Effective mentoring can often influence a developing professional to make informed decisions, make positive transitions, and make important connections with people and projects. Emerging professionals may be seeking a mentor beyond their graduate school advisor to help them enter the field; other newish WPAs may be seeking a mentor to help them test ideas; other WPAs recognize a professional juncture often requires an additional voice in their lives.
The Mentoring Blog
Intended to foster conversation around mentoring and valuable practices in WPA work, the Mentoring Blog will launch in early November 2012. Our year-long first topic will focus on amplifying the call for diversity and accountability made by Collin Craig and Staci Perryman-Clark in Troubling the Boundaries: DeConstructing WPA Identities at the Intersections of Race and Gender published in the spring 2011 issue of WPA: Journal of Writing Program Administration. Join the conversation throughout 2012-2013 as CWPA members add their voice to the mix on this pressing collective issue.
The Mentoring Strand Professional Development Archive
Since 2010, the Mentoring Project has sponsored a robust strand of Mentoring-focused sessions at the annual CWPA Conference. In partnership with WPA-GO, we've also sponsored Professional Development workshops for graduate students who are soon to be on the job market. Soon we hope to offer an archive of resources that have been shared at these sessions.
New to 2012, we also invited WPA-GO members to write reviews of Mentoring Strand Sessions at July's conference in Albuquerque, NM. In the future, we hope to grow this Mentoring Strand Professional Development Archive in collaboration with WPA-GO.
Ryan Witt's review of the 2012 featured session on Writing, Submitting, and Publishing Journal articles.
The Mentoring Project Committee
We invite you to join us!
Joe Janangelo & Michele Eodice
