Turning Practitioners into Professors: Exploring Effective Mentoring

"Induction" has been described as the evolutionary phase during which novice teachers become "integrated into the profession of teaching" (Heath-Camp & Camp, 1992). Given the relatively large number of advertising and public relations professionals who leave industry and agency posts to begin second careers as college professors (Gustafson & Thomsen, 1996; Lancaster, Katz & Cho, 1990), understanding how to improve this transitional process should be of great importance and interest to journalism, mass communication, and communication program directors and administrators. Shulman (1987) and Gustafson and Thomsen (1996) suggest that the induction process is the most effective under the direction of a seasoned and concerned mentor, who is capable of guiding the new teacher through the rigors of class preparation, research expectations, and demanding promotion and tenure requirements. Effective mentoring, they suggest, leads to greater job satisfaction, teaching competence, and research productivity, as well as a greater sense that these former practitioners have effectively and successfully made the transition into academe (Gustafson & Thomsen, 1996, See also Heath-Camp & Camp, 1992; Camp & Heath-Camp, 1992; Camp & Heath-Camp, 1991). As advertising and public relations programs continue to fill many of their faculty vacancies with former corporate or agency-side practitioners, it is essential to closely examine effective induction and mentoring programs (See, for example, Lancaster, Katz & Cho, 1990). The purpose of this study, then, is to probe and explore the mentoring and induction experiences of advertising and public relations professionals turned professors and to provide guidelines and recommendations to help department chairs, directors and deans improve their ability to help these former-practitioners successfully and comfortably settle into the academic world. Relevant literature "In the professional life of a teacher," write Camp & Heath-Camp (1991, p. 1), "no period is more critical to success, even to professional survival, than the induction phase. For many beginning teachers, the first year is a time of high expectations, great disappointments, important successes, and rapid learning." Although the specific focus of their research is in the area of vocational education, Heath-Camp and Camp's discussion has important implications for educators in advertising and public relations, many of whom also see the process as having a strong vocational orientation. Most "induction" or "career experience" research in mass communication-related fields has focused on issues such as the traits of mass communication educators (Weaver & Wilhoit, 1988), overall job satisfaction (Moriarty,1987; DeLong, 1984; Larkin,1982; Fedler Rz Counts,1982a, 1982b), job "burnout" (Dillon & Tanner, 1995) the need for balance between theory and real experience (Lancaster, et al.,1990), the recruiting and job search process (Hoskins, 1981; Pierce & Bennett, 1990; Ryan & Martinson, 1996), and the hiring practices of journalism, mass communication and communication programs. Lancaster, Katz and Cho (1990), for example, reported that as many as 66 percent of current advertising professors had left the "real world" to become college teachers. In their survey of ASJMC-member schools, Gustafson and Thomsen (1996) found that 52 percent of the programs had hired a "practitioner turned professor" to teach either public relations or advertising in the previous five-year period. They also reported, however, that only 35 percent of the programs currently had mentoring programs to help these former practitioners make the transition into academe. Gustafson and Thomsen noted that little has been written specifically about mentoring programs for practitioners turned professors, particularly those who have gone directly from industry to academe, and particularly for those in the fields of advertising and public relations. …