Mentorships to Work, Colleges and Faculties Have to Commit

Dr.S.SUNDARARAJAN, Professor, SIMS

Professors’ guidance can be life-changing for students, but the relationships require sustained resources, rewards, and support for the faculty members participating. Student Counseling, mentoring and guiding are some of the out of classroom services that have a significant impact on the change in attitude and future career of the student. However to undertake these activities to achieve the desired effects, a high level of empathy and skill is needed in the person delivering the service. The most faculty members who are assigned for these services have very little idea of the knowledge, skills and the attitude changes required to make them competent to deliver the service to professional standards.

In their opinion if an institution chooses to deliver these services to the students as an integral part of the program then the people engaged in delivering the service will need to be made competent to deliver the service. Such persons will need to undergo courses and conduct their practice to international standards and get themselves certified to do the job. The institutions have arranged programs for the trainers and faculty members chosen to provide counseling, mentoring and guidance services.

Counselling is the need of the day. During the counseling sessions they have the opportunity to talk to many people across spectrum. There is a feeling of being lost that it requires urgent counselling. Both mentoring and counselling cannot happen by Professors or teachers. Many believe it is the same as advising. It isn’t and both mentoring and counselling require special training.

Guidance in what is important in academics, Career and Resources. Rewards come from the transformation in the person we are guiding. Coaching is by far the easiest to define. A skill has to be transferred /taught and the coach demonstrates and helps practice and identify weaknesses/ grey areas.

A mentor on the other hand is more knowledge oriented( very loosely put) but also goes a step further in being involved in the development of the person-either through his own advise/intervention  or by referring to other experts. One of the pet ideas that have been toyed around for decades is the mentorship of a new teacher. By playing the role of a mentor, a senior teacher transfers his/her knowledge and experience to a youngster. It gives senior teachers a sense of purpose and a sense of ‘usefulness’. For the young teacher, there is a sounding board, a support, a fall back in case of confusion.

Yet mentoring has hardly worked in educational institutions and has worked to some extent in Corporate world. In India it has been a challenge-for one we have a lot of extraneous, hidden factors (culturally and socially), like age allows me to advice people, demand respect and so on. Mentorship is not possession of the young-it is the ability to say I am here and you can tap into my ability. If the mentee is not performing, it gives me the right to probe and understand why/ what the issues are. A good counselor listens to what is being said most importantly to what is NOT being said. Through active listening and probing questions, the counselor waits for the client to find his own answers, in his own time, in his own way and space and above all, in the way he wants it to be done. Maybe he is right, maybe he is wrong. IF wrong the counselor asks more questions as does the client. Back and forth till some clarity sets in and the gears change from emotional tsunami to a more logical, rational calm. The counselor helps the client to listen to himself and find a solution.

A good teacher should be able to connect with the students well. Until this connection is made, it will be really difficult to have holistic development in the students even we have a number of mechanisms in place. Many misinterpret the word “Connection”. It truly means: – To understand every student in the class. His/her areas of strength and weakness. – IQ level of every student and to some extent EQ level also. – Individual profiling of every student. – Grey areas, if any. – Providing comfort zone to students for more interaction. At the same time, as a teacher we must know where to draw the line also. Many times, I wonder, whether students at MBA level also require counseling? Rather emphasis should be more on “Mentoring”. Having counseling session in B-School is one of the criteria for NBA Accreditation by AICTE. All B-schools have counselors. Teachers only play the role of counselor; it is more of documentation and building up volumous file. Students also take counseling session very lightly as they know the end result. Counseling is very effective at elementary level of education/up to 10th standards when students try to understand the world slowly and they are very tender and ignorant about many things around.