Ediror's Choice: An Assessment of the Association of California Community College Administrators Mentor Program

From the outset of the community college movement, both faculty and junior-level administrators in California's community colleges have understood that, although not required by state law, an earned terminal degree has functioned as a prerequisite for advancement to virtually all senior-level administrative positions, reflecting the influence of recommendations made by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (Vaughan, 1986, p. 34). Since at least the 1980s, when access to senior-level positions became more competitive as the number of community colleges stabilized and, in the specific case of California, the outmoded credentialing system was abandoned, research on the career path of community college administrators has noted the growing importance of other prerequisites to advancement. Among these prerequisites, some have suggested, is the support and guidance of a protege's development by a mentor drawn from the ranks of senior-level community college administrators (Vaughan, 1990, p. 168). Indeed, in a 1984 national study of 1,500 community college administrators, slightly more than half of those at the dean's level or above acknowledged the personal benefit of a mentor's guidance and encouragement (Center for the Study of Higher Education, 1984).Moreover, just as there is a growing recognition of the importance of mentoring to career advancement, Bohlander and colleagues noted that mentoring has proven to be an effective tool to combat the residual effects of racism and sexism in the workplace (Bohlander, Snell, & Sherman, 2000). In the specific case of the community college, those who have examined the advancement of women and minorities within campuses and districts have argued that mentoring is an essential component to career advancement for these groups (Jones, 1988). In their view, mentoring, along with broadened access to terminal degrees, not only provides for the intergenerational transfer of essential skills, knowledge, and behaviors, but also contributes to the gender and racial diversification of qualified applicants for senior-level administrative positions.As the U.S. Department of Education (1993) has reported, mentoring typically functions on one of two levels: the natural or the planned. The majority of mentor relationships are of the first type. With respect to community colleges, these relationships develop on an ad hoc basis. A senior-level administrator will voluntarily select a mid-level administrator as a protege and, independent of any structured program, assist that person in developing advanced management skills, acquiring personal contacts, and, most important, becoming socialized into the values that are expected of senior college leadership.There are relatively few structured mentor programs within the community college sector designed specifically for aspiring junior-level administrators. Although a number of articles have called for the development of such programs (Jones, 1988), a review of the ERIC database reveals fewer than 25 articles, studies, and other publications that describe such programs. In large part, this sparse literature reflects that the majority of mentor programs in education focus almost exclusively on promoting college attendance and completion among at-risk youth (e.g., Pagan & Edwards-Wilson, 2003; Peterman, 2003).The Mentoring ContextBackgroundThe term mentor is rooted in Western civilization's earliest literature, deriving from Homer's The Odyssey. When upon leaving his island kingdom of Ithaca for the Trojan War, Odysseus placed the instruction of his son, Telemachus, in the hands of Mentor, his old and wise friend. Homer was among the first to describe the basic human process by which an older generation, as a social obligation, passes on its knowledge and skills to youth.Although mentoring of the natural type has been as integral to the development of leaders in education as in any other field, it has been within only the last 30 years that the education literature has shown a greater awareness of the possibility to enhance the competence of inexperienced administrators through planned mentoring. …