Mentoring Priorities
by laurencet
By Helen Van Noorden, Mentoring Liaison
This year there were over twenty requests for mentoring when the WCC UK offered one-off mentoring chats to coincide with the Classical Association Annual Conference. With the kind assistance of committee members and willingness on the part of mentors to take on two mentees, we managed to meet the demand with a variety of in-person and online appointments over that conference weekend. Mentees were roughly matched to mentors where possible in their subject interests.
Topics on which advice was requested by several mentees, other than discussions on dealing with specific forms of data, included: navigating male-dominated faculties; opportunities for those with interdisciplinary backgrounds and non-Classics-but-related majors; networking; active engagement with the academic community; perspectives on the UK academic landscape; how to choose research topics or supervisors; strategic preparation for post-PhD life.
The WCC UK offers to members both short-term mentoring at/alongside the Classical Association conference every year, and longer-term (one year) peer-mentoring in the form of one-year triads. These are set up each autumn and are expected to adhere to the WCC mentoring code of conduct.