Early career academics talk about being mentored — what works and what could work better
When Dr Heike Lucht, a research assistant at the University of Pretoria, was paired with a mentor affiliated with Rhodes University (RU) through an online programme, she was rather taken aback when she discovered he is based in Australia.
“I did not know the mentor I was matched with was not actually in South Africa. So a little bit more information might have been more useful, but we do find a way around it, and we have agreed on a specific time slot that works for both of us.
“Although it is challenging being in different time zones, and we’ve only met twice so far, he has helped me in gaining a little bit of direction of what I should aim for and what I’m capable of. He has helped me better my CV and market my skills correctly.”
Dr Lucht (left) was speaking of her experiences as a mentee at a recent online meeting of the Community of Practice for Postgraduate Education and Scholarship (CoP PGES), one of 12 such groupings hosted by Universities South Africa (USAf).
Lucht, who joined UP, her alma mater, in her present position in July 2022, had looked for a mentor to guide her on publishing and understanding the academic landscape. Finding one has taught her how to mentor others, she said, and guide students through their degree.
“I’m an animal scientist, and it is very difficult, especially in the second year, because we have the pre vets, and they need a lot of emotional support to get through the pressures of facing the vet selection. Being mentored by a more experienced mentor has helped me hone my own skills to be there in a supportive role academically, as well as for emotional support,” she said.
Thuso Connect
The online platform that matched Dr Lucht with her mentor is Thuso Connect on USAf’s website.
“I think having the freedom to match with more than one person, and to test out who you click with the best, might be helpful. But it’s definitely a very useful tool for early career researchers as well as postgraduate students, to have someone lead them into the world of academia; help deal with the pressures of academia and how to find your place and find your purpose,” she said.
Professor Stephanie Burton (right) of the University of Pretoria, Chairperson of CoP PGES and Programme Leader of USAf’s Advancing Early Career Researchers and Scholars, outlined how the Thuso Connect platform “offers many different opportunities to be guided for mentors and mentees”. It takes click on a box on the site to be led to advice bearing documents and information on aspects of mentorship, such as how to develop an action plan between the mentor and the mentee.
Supervision vs mentorship
The online meeting on Effective Mentoring, held on 14 November 2024, attracted 130 participants from across the higher education sector in South Africa.
Lucht was one of two mentees who spoke at the meeting alongside two mentors, a PhD candidate who has published on the subject, and a representative of the National Research Foundation (NRF).
Professor Burton explained how this meeting was the first “in-depth discussion about how people experience mentorship”.
She sketched the difference between supervision and mentorship.
A supervisor is somebody who is deeply involved in research in the area in which a postgraduate student is working. It’s a research partnership. The supervisor is responsible for ensuring the postgraduate student makes progress and advises and provides knowledge expertise.
Mentorship, for its part, is broader. A mentor does not need to be an expert in the mentee’s specific project or research work. “Mentors, in my view, offer wisdom,” said Burton. “It involves building partnerships, setting goals, establishing best practices and developing plans, making agreements, and gaining feedback and advice. Those are the kind of things mentors help a mentee to do.”
Mentors help develop a strategic mindset
The second academic to speak about his experience of being mentored was Dr Mbekezeli Nxumalo, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics (Pure and Applied) at RU. Nxumalo joined the university in 2021 as a New Generation of Academics Programme (nGAP) scholar, an initiative of the Department of Higher Education and Training. It offers a six-year development and induction programme for new academics in understaffed disciplines, supported by mentoring.
Dr Nxumalo (left) spoke of his nGap mentor, Professor Eric Andriantiana at RU. He distinguished Andriantiana from his PhD supervisor, Professor Themba Dube of Unisa, by referring to him as “a work mentor”.
He said his nGap mentor had helped him draft a plan detailing what he should focus on to prepare for things like promotion. “Each time we met to discuss my nGAP mentor report, we reflected back on the initial goals that we set, to see how much we had covered. So, from day one of working with him, I developed the mindset of being strategic and conscious about things that I do in an academic space. I learned that even though not everything prepares one for promotion, I should at least be able to classify where each activity falls – either it’s for personal growth or it’s for promotion.”
Nxumalo said the other benefit of mentorship was being supported to understand about adapting to the institution. “Mentorship should not only be done because one needs promotion or something related to that, it must be from the interest of seeing someone grow and doing well in their own space,” he said.
He said the problem with nGAP mentors is that it is still a new programme and not many people have completed it, so the mentors have little knowledge about it.
He also said there were moments when he wished his PhD supervisor was his official Rhodes University mentor to give him more precise advice about navigating his research area. “I even expected my mentor to be more of a supervisor, to guide me in terms of how things work in my research area. But unfortunately, we are working in different areas and that is one of the challenges. But I have never had a tangible problem with my mentor and our relationship has been smooth since 2021; it’s just those things where I feel I could get more from him.”
He said his mentor had held his hand throughout and prepared him for promotion.
“I would say to early career academics, choose your own mentor, if it is possible to do so. Have in mind what kind of mentor you need and then you’ll make a sober decision about who to choose,” said Dr Nxumalo.
Mentees must be proactive
Mr Kevin Ayanda Ndlovu (right), Lecturer in the Humanities Extended Curriculum Programme of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), has recently co-authored a paper on mentoring. Ndlovu and another UKZN lecturer, Ms Hleliwe Khumalo, wrote Mentoring as a Form of Transformation in Academia, which was published in the African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies in February 2024.
Both are PhD candidates. While Ndlovu is not directly involved with mentoring, Khumalo is a mentee on UKZN’s Talent Equity and Excellence Acceleration Scholarship.
Ndlovu said nGAP and the UKZN scholarship provided support, guidelines and networking opportunities and had produced notable academics and helped underrepresented groups such as black African females “overcome those structural barriers in academia, that is the strength of the benefits of mentorship”.
He said universities did not formalise mentorship programmes, which sometimes led to frustrations and miscommunication when you have a mentor who is not properly trained to be one.
He said mentees need to be proactive. “We wait for supervisors or for mentors to protect us, to chase us around. We are not proactive. So the first point would be for us to be proactive in seeking feedback, proactive in setting our goals, proactive in asking questions that will make us understand the broader role of mentorship. In that way, you get to be more focused on how your mentor conducts themselves. You must see yourself as someone who will mentor someone else. Take what you think will work for you and impart it to someone else in the near future,” said Ndlovu.
Gillian Anstey is a contract writer for Universities South Africa.