FWSA Mentoring Scheme

The FWSA Mentoring Scheme aims to foster a strong feminist community that encourages supportive and collegial relationships between members of the Association. The scheme is for FWSA members who have passed their PhDs and are early- or mid-career scholars. They will be paired with a more experienced mentor who is able to pass on advice or share experiences. With academic work becoming ever more precarious and competitive, the aim of the mentoring scheme is to counter this environment with a collective feminist politics and a supportive environment for feminist colleagues. Having received supervisory support during their PhD work, some researchers find guidance at this point of the academic career trajectory to be lacking. In particular, the FWSA aims to support those without institutional support or other sources of mentorship.

Mentees will be introduced to their mentor by email, and we envisage that this will be an informal relationship to provide good counsel. It is a supportive, one-to-one relationship, within a confidential and supportive environment, and based on mutual trust. The mentoring relationship will last for 12 months over the course of the academic year (October-September). We suggest that once mentors and mentees are matched by the FWSA that they mutually agree the expectations of the coming year. Matters for discussion may include job applications, publications and research, career anxieties, academic politics, feminist mobilising in academia, teaching tips, and so on. The amount of contact between the mentor and mentee is flexible, although we would suggest a minimum of 4 meetings (in person, by email, Skype or telephone) in the 12-month period. Mentors and mentees may wish to stay in touch after the mentoring period has ended, but this is not a formal agreement.

The mentors for 2019/20 are:

• Dr Karina Aveyard (Senior Lecturer in Media, Arts and Humanities, University of East Anglia)
• Dr Anna Bull (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Portsmouth and a founding member of The 1752 Group)
• Prof Bridget Byrne (School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester)
• Dr Maryam Ghorbankarimi (Lecturer in Film Practice, Lancaster University)
• Dr Sharon Lockyer (Senior Lecturer In Sociology & Communications, Brunel University London)
• Dr Jo Littler (Department of Sociology and Director of the Gender and Sexualities Research Centre at City, University of London)
• Dr Karen Lumsden (School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham)
• Dr Geetha Marcus (Senior Lecturer at Queen Margaret University in the Division of Psychology, Sociology and Education)
• Dr Catherine Rottenberg (Associate Professor in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham)
• Prof Kate Sang (Professor of Gender and Employment Studies at Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University)
• Prof Heather Savigny (Professor of Gender, Media and Politics, De Montfort University, Leicester)
• Dr Karen Throsby (School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds)

The mentor’s role is:

• To provide confidential advice and support at an agreed mutually convenient time (in person, by email, skype or telephone).
• To maintain confidentiality and respect for others in the scheme.

Please note, we do not expect mentors:

• To read drafts of work, although they might be happy to do so.
• To write references, although they might be happy to do so.
• To provide mentoring outside of working hours.

The mentee’s role is:

• To consider what they want to get out of the scheme before they have been matched and inform their mentor.
• To take into account their mentor’s workload and recognise that this is a relationship based on goodwill, and not expect unreasonable demands or requests of your mentor that have not been agreed.
• To maintain confidentiality and respect for others in the scheme.

The FWSA’s role (Co-chairs and Mentoring Scheme Officer) is:

• To match up mentees’ individual requirements and mentors’ skills, to the best of our ability.
• To resolve any issues or challenges that might arise from the scheme. Confidentiality may have to be broken in exceptional circumstances if this is the case.
• To undertake an informal review at the end of the year to improve the scheme in the future.

How to apply:

If you are interested in applying to the scheme, please send your CV, a 500-word max. statement of need for mentoring, and a 500-word max. statement on how you envisage you would make use of the mentoring relationship (i.e. for research advice, teaching advice, career progression advice, etc.) to fwsachair@gmail.com.

We will prioritise applicants based on need, so please supply a clear case for why you are in need of mentorship in your application. Where possible, we will match mentors and mentees based on research interests.

All mentees need to be members of FWSA on applying for the scheme. Mentees must be working or have studied in a UK or Irish Institution. PhD students will be considered in exceptional circumstances. If you are a PhD student and wish to apply, please make this clear in your application.

Deadline: Friday 20 September 2019

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