Library Faculty Affairs LFAC 06/07-###???
March 27, 2007
Time: 11
Present: Marsha Miller, Valentine Muyumba, Rolland
McGiverin, Myrna McCallister,
Absent: Karen Evans, Susan Frey
Main topic for this meeting: Mentoring [charge 07-08: revise New Faculty Orientation program]
K. Evans provided document, Proposal for Mentoring Program at Cunningham Memorial Library, outlining purpose, why a mentoring program should exist, mentor goals & duties, general info, ideas for mentors starting relationship. Conversation evolved into questions:
& What’s the difference between an orientation program and a mentoring program? A. Comer referred committee to New Faculty checklists, available in Forms directory. M. Miller will locate and add to LFAC directory.
& Where does the supervisor fit in?
& Who is responsible for the new faculty member receiving training?
& Mentoring may be more of a group effort/responsibility
LFAC has access to the checklists created in the 1980s for
the New Employee Orientation program developed by
Should mentoring be a formal or informal program? M. McCallister commented on what she calls a lack of commonality among library faculty regarding the relationships/worth, etc. of performance vs. work vs. librarianship. She feels strongly that librarianship should always come first, with other areas to follow. As regards Research/Scholarship, she stated that research should result in a librarian doing her/his main job better. So, for example, reference librarians should concentrate on research on reference issues, with the end result that they become better reference librarians.
Other aspects of this: is this research, or is it staff development and training, and just ‘keeping up’ with current developments?
Additional discussion about research/scholarship: what are library faculty doing? M. McCallister asked if library should bring back the 3d Thursday forum. There was consensus that this was a good idea.
Discussion on mentoring/orientation needs to continue.