Title: Shelters through the storm
Description: This dissertation examines the perspectives of African-American and White faculty mentors of African-American undergraduate students through a comparative analysis of the factors that influence the faculty members' mentorship of students, the role of formative experiences in faculty's philosophy and approach to mentorship around issues of race, and an examination of the advising and counseling strategies employed by faculty when assisting African-American undergraduate students negotiate their perceived experiences of racial conflict. In this study, I utilize the theoretical constructs of Critical Race Pedagogy and theories of cross-race developmental relationships to present the perspectives of 12 faculty mentors identified by African-American undergraduate students and recent graduates of Harvard College. Data were collected via student surveys, faculty questionnaires, and through a phenomenological qualitative approach consisting of two interviews with each faculty participant. This study challenges perspectives that factors such as family life, experiences and exposure to diversity, and professional identity issues are inconsequential in faculty mentors' approaches to mentoring African-American undergraduate students, and advances a critical theory of difference in which to conceptualize mentoring relationships in the context of higher education. Findings indicate that women faculty emphasize a caring approach to mentoring, but that they are also stereotyped as nurturers by male colleagues.

White faculty, though unable and unwilling to draw direct connections to their own feelings of exclusion in certain situations due to markers of difference in their own lives, are able to relate and empathize with the potentially racially microaggressive environment that African-American undergraduates face at Harvard, and provide comparable psychosocial and instrumental support to their African-American mentees when compared to African-American faculty. Further, faculty approach mentoring from a sense of personal responsibility, but such dedication is not reinforced in their professional evaluative processes. By emphasizing the importance of experiences with diversity with new hires, as well as evaluating mentorship and rewarding faculty who are strong mentors, institutions can endorse the importance of mentorship for African-American undergraduate students and encourage the development of such relationships.
Subjects: African Americans, Education (Higher), Mentoring in education, Case studies, Minority college students, African American college students, Attitudes
Places: United States