UNT Mentorship and Cross-Silo Work

Results from the 2021-2022 COACHE Survey & Focus Groups
 

 Areas of Strength 

Asterisks indicate areas in which UNT outsines its peers.

• 87% of UNT faculty report mentoring within their department is important.
• 62% of UNT faculty report mentoring outside their department is important.*
• 67% ofUNT faculty report mentoring outside their institution is important.*
• 80% of UNT faculty report being a mentor as important.
• 60% of UNT faculty report satisfaction with opportunities to collaborate within their departments.

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 Other Areas of Strength 

The majority of Faculty of Color and Unerrepresented Minority, White, women, associate, professional, and pre-tenure faculty report satisfaction with opportunities to collaborate within their departments (60% to 65%). The majority of Asian, Associate, and Pre-Tenure faculty report satisfaction with opportunities to collaborate outside of their departments (63% to 69%). Pre-tenure faculty report effective mentorship outside of their institution (70%) and within their department (65%).

 Areas of Growth 

• 58% of Unerrepresented Minorty (URM) faculty report engaging in interdisciplinary research.
• 34% of Faculty of Color (FOC) agree this is support for being a good mentor.
• 56% of full professors report engaging in interdisciplinary research or teaching.

                    Recommendations and Resources                    

While many UNT faculty indicated that they are currently conducting or are interested in interdisciplinary work, the COACHE results also identified areas where faculty would like to see improvement in practices that encourage interdisciplinary work and recognize this work in faculty evaluations. These include:

• Recommend further data gathering to identify best practices for measuring and rewarding interdisciplinary work and a review of university policies/resources affecting this type of work.
• Encourage recognition and expressions of support from higher-level administration for interdisciplinary work and regularly highlight such work in communications.
• Develop awards to recognize excellence in interdisciplinary work.
• COACHE offers examples of best practices for interdisciplinary work such as discussing and removing barriers to its practice and using interdisciplinarity of proposed projects as a review criterion (Source: COACHE white paper Benchmark Best Practices: Interdisciplinary Work & Collaboration).

UNT has many mentoring resources available for faculty throughout their career that encourage within-discipline and interdisciplinary research and support.

• Faculty Success provides support for mentoring success through the Faculty Mentoring Program, which includes:
  • One-on-One Mentoring pairing new full-time faculty with a departmental mentor.
  • The Mentoring Grant program to provide financial support to help faculty gain institutional knowledge, support teaching and/or research efforts, develop professional networks, and promote diversity.
  • The Faculty Mentoring Guidebook.
  • CREATE Program: For pre-tenure faculty to widen their mentoring and research support by working with an external mentor.
• UNT also supports an institutional membership to NCFDD which provides free mentoring resources and webinars for UNT faculty and graduate students.

*= UNT Outshines Peers