University Mentoring Scheme Developments
This page highlights the development of mentoring activity at the university through the University Mentoring Scheme.
2017: The University Mentoring Scheme was launched
Open to colleagues across further and higher education, the University Mentoring Scheme set out to:
- Pair colleagues for one-to-one support
- Support professional practice enhancement
- Build institutional awareness
- Develop cross-discipline expertise
- Expand professional networks
2018: The first annual mentoring residential took place in August with internal and external facilitators
The two-day residential supports the development of mentoring skills for mentors and provides the opportunity to network and learn from others.
2018-19: All academic partner colleges are engaged with the scheme
The number of colleagues engaged on one or more of the mentoring strands grows to 153.
2020: Scholarship Development Strand is added to the Mentoring Scheme, the scheme now comprises of four distinct strands:
- Learning and Teaching Enhancement
- Professional Recognition
- Scholarship Development
- Research
2020: The Mentoring Code of Practice is developed and launched
A values-based code of practice aligned to internal and external strategy and frameworks.
2019-20: Membership grows to 164 colleagues engaged on one or more strand
Spotlight on mentoring month #UHIMentoring
April 2021 saw the LTA focus on mentoring in a spotlight month that shared news, resources, and reflections on how the mentoring scheme has supported colleagues across the academic partnership since 2017, and in particular throughout the last academic year. We shared blog posts, mentoring interviews, a good practice case study, an eBook and showcased the UHI Mentoring Code of Practice and the five university mentoring values therein, through the LTA twitter group @LTA_UHI and the university mentoring yammer group. The month-long activities have been captured in a mentoring spotlight month infographic.
Beyond one-to-one mentoring
As well as supporting one-one mentoring partnerships, the mentoring scheme has supported a number of internal and international initiatives as outlined below.
Expanding beyond one-to-one mentoring partnerships
Expanding beyond one-to-one mentoring partnerships
Expanding beyond one-to-one partnerships
In April-May 2020 the LTA launched mentoring circle coffee meetings with group mentoring exploring online learning and teaching in a confidential space intended to provide support and guidance for university colleagues through the initial lockdown of COVID-19. These ran again with new topics in November-January 2020-21.
Group mentoring meetings were also launched to support the writing of eBooks as outlined in the sections below.
The strand leads wrote a blog summarising the mentoring circle meetings, you can find it on the LTA blog page.
We anticipate that more mentoring circle topics and dates will be added in Semester 1 in 2021-22.
Mentoring to support an international research project CHORTENS
Mentoring to support an international research project CHORTENS
Mentoring to support an international research project CHORTENS
CHORTENS is a collaborative project between The Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) and the university, focusing on capacity building in academic practice, professional development, and educational research. With respect to mentoring, the collaboration aims to provide colleagues at RUB the experience of a formal mentor scheme so that the university can consider if such a scheme would be beneficial in their own context, while for UHI it provides an opportunity to further enhance the mentoring scheme and approaches including developing digitally distributed mentoring arrangements that are transnational and intercultural in scope. The three strands of mentoring are:
- Mentoring to support the authoring publication of this eBook ‘Bhutan: Ways of Teaching and Learning;
- One to one mentoring to support specific areas of interest and/or professional development;
- Mentoring for women engineering academics at the College and Science and Technology and Jigme Namgyel Engineering College.
You can read more about the project from the blog post 'Reflection on Bhutan' available from the LTA blog page.
Colleagues can read more about the mentoring arrangement from the eBook 'Bhutan: Ways of Teaching and Learning.
Mentoring to support gender equality
Mentoring to support gender equality
Mentoring to support Gender Equality
The mentoring scheme has supported gender equality initiatives and projects. Mentoring has been established through the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Strand, to supporting university Aurora participants through and beyond the women-only leadership programme. You can read more about the Aurora Leadership Programme here.
The Scholarship Development Strand has supported, through one-to-one mentoring, the publication of an eBook exploring gender balance and case studies of individual experiences of working and/or studying at the university. The eBook topics align to the 2021 university International Women's Day event, with the presenters authoring chapters, and will be published in May 2021.