VCU Faculty Mentoring Program

VCU’s Faculty Mentoring Program, initially launched in 2025-26, is designed to support faculty success and professional growth using a mentoring model that balances individualized guidance with cohort and peer mentoring activities. Through regular 1:1 mentoring and unified cohort sessions, participants receive comprehensive support in teaching, research and scholarship, and navigating the academic landscape to further their success.

Our call for mentors and mentees is now open!

Program Structure

1:1 Mentorship

Assistant and associate professors have the opportunity to be matched with full professors who serve as dedicated mentors. Matches are carefully coordinated by Faculty Affairs staff. Matches are made outside home departments, schools or colleges to broaden institutional perspectives and encourage unbiased guidance. Each mentor receives training and support from Faculty Affairs and works with up to two mentees. 

Faculty Mentors

Mentoring Focus

Mentees can choose to focus on a specific strand, or area, of their faculty responsibilities throughout the program. The strand topics will be the focus of 1:1 mentoring sessions and aspects of the “gather and grow” cohort sessions. 

The strands include:

• Teaching and Learning Strand: Focused on teaching and impact on students. Where mentees may receive advice on student engagement, curricular innovation, and the scholarship of teaching and learning depending on their individual needs and interests. 
• Research and Scholarship Strand: Focused on research, scholarly and creative expression activities. Mentees may receive guidance on elevating their scholarly profile, finding collaborators, navigating writing and publishing workflows, and securing funding or grant. 
• Holistic Strand: Focused on the broad responsibilities of faculty and includes guidance and support to enhance teaching and learning efforts as well as research and scholarly activities. 

Gather & Grow: Cohort Sessions 

Connect with your cohort through meaningful group sessions. These sessions address topics and strategies to guide how you can  navigate academia and the institutional environment effectively. Topics include general career growth and specific issues including:  balancing workloads, managing academic expectations, developing career trajectories and maintaining work-life balance. Cohort sessions involve large and small group activities, where you can connect with faculty with similar career stages and responsibilities. 

Program Benefits

The program is intended to offer the following benefits to the mentees:

• Candid conversations providing trusted, one-to-one advice from senior faculty
• Shared experiences and collective problem-solving through unified topical sessions
• Clear direction for developing a career plan
• Guidance to navigate academia
• Facilitate retention and increased productivity
• Opportunities to build interdisciplinary connections across different schools and campuses

Expectations

Our Impact: By the Numbers & Faculty Voices

Mentors benefitted through supporting and helping others, learning about the culture of other units and disciplines, engaging in conversations outside of their own unit, making new connections and relationships

What Our Participants Say