Doctoral Cohort Mentoring: Interdependence, Collaborative Learning, and Cultural Change.

This article explores the value of cohort mentoring for facilitating as well as structuring mentoring relationships involving students and faculty. A narrative case study is provided of a doctoral cohort, with focus on the experienced teacher’s development as scholar-practitioner leader. While informal and semiformal cohorts have a viable presence within many universities, they have failed to receive institutional support and adequate attention in the extant literature. Specifi cally, the Writers in Training (WIT), a semiformal university cohort program, provided feedback primarily through audiotaped dialogue, with additional information derived from textual artifacts. The results highlight the relevance of interdependence, collaborative learning, and cultural change to cohort mentoring. Implications suggest the need for rewards and policies that support such grassroots initiatives aimed at the successful socialization, success, and graduation of students. Collaborative learning marshals the power of interdependence among peers. Students learn the craft of interdependence. (Bruffee, 1999, pp. xii–xiii) 12 Carol A. Mullen & Elizabeth M. Tuten Volume 4, Number 1 Scholar-Practitioner Quarterly T practicing teacher who is striving to become an academician and leader can expect to experience increased success in graduate school where exposed to collaborative models of learning. We, the authors, are concerned with the preparation of doctoral students in educational leadership (EDL) for whom engagement in their program and dissertation as scholar-practitioner leader is critical. Relevant to this discussion, it is recognized that the scholar-practitioner leader recognizes “the primacy of conversation” for his or her work in human affairs, especially when needing to reach consensus among those with “divergent positions” (Horn, 2002, p. 84). In the EDL discipline, most students are full-time teachers pursuing their doctorates on a part-time basis. Indeed, the extant literature describes the diffi culty school practitioners face with the struggle to balance career, family, and work (Twale & Kochan, 2000). Given this picture of stresses, fewer than 50% of students, in North America at least, obtain doctorates in education (Dorn & Papalewis, 1997). Nonetheless, while personal circumstances may account for some portion of this attrition rate, graduate faculties remain charged with fi nding ways to shepherd students through their degree programs. Within this highpressure context, Bruffee (1999) attests that faculty can make a difference by acculturating students into knowledge communities. Central to this effort is the mobilization and sustainability of academic support groups. Purpose, Defi nitions, and Context The purpose of this narrative case study is to explore the role and practice of effective pedagogical practices that support the development of scholar-practitioner leaders through collaborative learning in the academy (Bruffee, 1999; Horn, 2001; Patel, 2003). The underlying problem studied is twofold: Doctoral students as a group experience high attrition and many express dissatisfaction with the supervision being received. As a professor and doctoral student joining forces, we investigated doctoral cohort mentoring using dialogue as the basis of our narrative inquiry approach; furthermore, we have attempted to analyze the benefi ts and detriments presented by this solution in general and in regard to a specifi c case. The research question we asked was: “What is the process and effect of mentoring on the grassroots doctoral cohort in which we participate? ” Herein, we defi ne mentoring cohort as a collaborative faculty–student group that extends support to doctoral students and their academic mentors (Mullen, 2005). Support groups, such as the WIT cohort, are special kinds of learning communities constituted by those seeking to undergo a similar process of change and who depend on one another to help fulfi ll needs, resolve issues, and address uncertainty. The familiar practice of collaborative learning among adults capitalizes on the capacity of students to “govern themselves in a context of substantive engagement, conversation, and negotiation” (Bruffee, 1999, p. 89). Doctoral Cohort Mentoring 13 Scholar-Practitioner Quarterly Volume 4, Number 1 Our focus on doctoral mentoring herein involves a semiformal faculty– student cohort initiative associated with a premier research institution located in west central Florida. Known as the Writers in Training (“WIT” in the singular and “WITs” when referring to members) this educational leadership cohort has the dual agenda of preparing students as dissertation researchers and as scholar-practitioners. Indeed, it is diffi cult to know the extent to which such noninstitutional groups that foster as well as structure naturally occurring mentoring relationships involving students and faculty even occur in the academy. However, other cases involving informal doctoral cohorts meeting with their professor-mentors outside of structured courses and regular work hours have been reported. Additionally, positive results have accrued for students who move beyond personal isolation and engage as interdependent learners—not only as educational inquirers (Witte & James, 1998) but also as social justice activists (Horn, 2001). Overall, though, only limited attention has been paid to doctoral cohorts in the literature. When doctoral cohorts are addressed, a formal, institutionalized model is usually highlighted (Horn, 2001). As an alternative, we present a modifi ed cohort model that functions informally but that incorporates formal elements for addressing the inadequate mentoring many doctoral students report experiencing. Mentorship itself, as evidenced by its confusion with teaching and learning, tends to be a murky concept. It can indeed be seen as a holistic form of teaching and learning that embraces the professional and the personal, the psychosocial and career facets of a protégé’s development, and such activities as advising, tutoring, coaching, and counseling (Johnson & Huwe, 2003). Furthermore, effective mentoring has special qualities, notably the developmental opportunity involved in learning partnerships, as well as fl exibility in activity settings, support group structures, and value placed on learning as a shared, lifelong endeavor. The concept and act of mentoring can be better understood by making distinctions. To clarify, someone may be a fi ne lecturer or teacher but not necessarily a good mentor (Johnson & Huwe, 2003). Despite the fact that multiple forms of mentoring occur inside and outside the classroom, it is seen as a personal relationship between two people—a knowing, experienced professional and a protégé—who commit to an advisory (typically nonevaluative) context that often involves a long-term goal. While the pervasive view of mentoring as a one-on-one relational experience represents one valid mode, it is oversimplifi ed. Moreover, mentoring has the capacity to function at the group level, where not only interpersonal change can occur but also cultural and systemic. Mentoring, then, is becoming valued as a change force at even the most executive levels of organizations. Building on a previous pilot study (Mullen, 2003), we seek to examine both the process and outcomes associated with nonformalized doctoral mentoring cohorts that are planned, not strictly spontaneous, in their form and activity. In doing so, we avoid the need for an imposed dichotomy of formal versus informal mentoring. Instead, we present an original model of a hybrid mentoring cohort 14 Carol A. Mullen & Elizabeth M. Tuten Volume 4, Number 1 Scholar-Practitioner Quarterly that has been organically formed based upon the dynamics and needs of a particular group and simultaneously formalized into a faculty member’s advising of doctoral students. While this study confi rms the overall value placed on HE cohorts in the educational literature (Horn, 2001; Miller & Irby, 1999), it offers new insight into cohort mentoring in the form of hybrid structures. Additionally, the voices of the group members have been recognized herein, privileging the students’ perceptions and thereby increasing the reliability of the results shared (Campbell & Campbell, 1997). Educational Models of Mentorship