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Articles Conference Reviews |
Coalition of Women ScholarsCoalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition The Coalition of Women Scholars met to discuss academic mentoring and to practice mentorship in small roundtable discussions on specific topics; there were about 100 women in attendance. Six speakers were slated to kick off the meeting: Marcy Tucker, Cheryl Ball, Rebecca Rickly, Casie Fedukovich, Melissa Nicolas and Allison Brimmer. Marcy Tucker of Texas A&M University spoke on the underlying beliefs of mentoring, the difference between male and female mentoring styles, and different types of mentors. Tucker presented her assertion about men and women as having different mentoring styles with an image of two male hands shaking, forming an agreement, and a separate image of two female hands clasped, fingers intertwined, forming relationships. According to Tucker, women’s mentoring relationships tend to be more personal, but women often sabotage each other in the workplace and are forced to multitask to meet many expectations. Women, therefore, have different needs that must be met by different kinds of mentors. Some mentors may meet emotional needs. Others may be negotiators who help new faculty and graduate students realize that it is okay to ask for certain things. Women often lower their sense of entitlement when they should embrace a sense of entitlement. Another type of mentor is the politician who teaches mentees that they can’t please everyone; they suggest that there is no need to be accommodating, but that when you say no, you should do so politically. The risk-taker mentor teaches mentees to handle rejection positively and freely admit to making mistakes. The risk-taker also teaches that silence makes you vulnerable and perpetuates the status quo. The task-master encourages mentees to learn and work in short blocks of time instead of having a full day. Tucker concluded her presentation by encouraging everyone to pursue mentors that fulfill each of these roles and to not be overwhelmed by needing such a variety of mentorship relationships. Casie Fedukovich, a graduate student from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, recited a poem that she co-composed with her mentor, Jenn Fishman, about being mentored as we research, and researching as we mentor. This pantoum on working with an advisor/advisee on a qualitative dissertation illustrated the collaborative and reflective nature of this work; it focused on the circular process of “thinking, explaining, thinking,” the importance of voice in the dissertation, and “the work before the work” – the integral planning that occurs before the writing of the dissertation. Cheryl Ball of Illinois State University discussed mentoring electronically and from a distance. She also presented for Rebecca Rickly of Texas Tech, who was unable to attend. Ball presented the problems raised by mentoring at a distance in several different situations: job training, communicating with employees/employers, and mentoring. She mentioned the use of Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, and Skype. In her role as editor of Kairos and other publications, she uses e-mail to communicate with her authors because it establishes a record of what they discussed and agreed upon for content, deadlines, etc. Skype is an effective means for establishing personal connections because of the visual element. Twitter is particularly useful because of its accessibility and brevity. She concluded with several questions about the new field of E-leadership:
Melissa Nicolas and Allison Brimmer co-presented on “non"-academic methods of mentoring academics. They spoke about how mentorship organizations can alleviate the loneliness of being the only rhetoric and composition faculty at an institution. They mentioned the SLAC (Selective Liberal Arts Consortium), which provides mentoring for faculty at small liberal arts colleges, as one such organization. The SLAC provides a database for people who can provide promotion and tenure reviews, writing workshops at the annual gathering, a buddy system for Writing Program Administrators, a newsletter called “Small Talk Quarterly,” and a mentorship request system for both mentors and mentees. Nicolas and Brimmer also discussed the importance of women mentoring women being treated as academic work. They mentioned the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and its history of advocacy, education, and research. They created a branch in the university open to faculty, students, administration, and staff whose signature moves are empowerment through action and programs. The speakers also mentioned the work done by Women Are Getting Even (WAGE) Project Training as significant work towards eliminating discrimination against women in the workplace. Louise Wetherbee Phelps acted as a respondent, concluding the presentations with the reassurance that everyone needs mentoring—staff, administrators, teachers, and colleagues—throughout their career. Since many colleges and universities do not provide adequate mentoring, we must create our own non-traditional methods of obtaining mentorship. Also, women and people of color have greater and different needs that are not met by traditional mentorship methods. Phelps claims that the solution to this inequity is to develop non-traditional mentoring through professional channels like CCCC. Arguing that local mentoring is often lacking or is not the one you need, she calls for both local and non-local mentorship, as well as mentorship from other fields in and out of one’s department and institution. Different mentors fulfill different roles and functions at different times. Several questions were posed to the speakers. One of the more helpful responses (in regard to a question concerning across-curriculum mentoring for dissertation groups) noted that some of the most influential mentorship events occur in five-minute conversations in the hallway. Following the presentations and question and answer session, members broke into groups, gathering around mentoring tables headed by one or two mentors who spoke on specific topics such as Research Methodology, Getting Tenure, Publishing the Dissertation, Completing the Dissertation, Digital Spaces, and Balancing Personal and Work Life. Nan Johnson of The Ohio State University, a founding member of the CWS and current member at large, led the discussion at the Research Methodology discussion table, providing insightful information on how to let archival findings guide research questions. She encouraged doctoral students to deal with primary materials that no one else is working with to find a dissertation topic. Andrea Lunsford of Stanford University, a former officer of the CWS, led the discussion group called Getting Tenure. The discussion at this table was emotionally charged by faculty who had been denied tenure for reasons they felt were unfair. These faculty were advised to document tenure meetings and departmental and university expectations in order to combat unfair practices. Roxanne Kirkwood of Marshall University led the largest and most eager discussion group—Completing the Dissertation—with over twenty doctoral candidates at all different stages of the dissertation process. Some key pieces of advice were to plan the dissertation before researching and writing, carefully manage time, and realize that "the only good dissertation is a done dissertation." The next issue of Peitho, the newsletter of the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, will have the presentations written up and/or electronic links to them. To access the newsletter online, go to: http://www.cwshrc.org/peitho. Also distributed at the meeting was information on the Coalition’s Kathleen Ethel Welch Outstanding Article Award and The Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award, both awards for outstanding work in the areas of feminist pedagogy, practice, history, and theory. Nominations must be received by January 1 of the award year. For more information, go to http://cwshrc.org/awards or contact Lynee Lewis Gaillet at lgaillet@gsu.edu. |