Book Reviewed: Todd C. Ream, Jerry Pattengale, and Christopher J. Devers, eds., Cultivating Mentors: Sharing Wisdom in Christian Higher Education (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2022)
Journal of Christian Teaching Practice, Volume 11, 2024 (January – December)
Reviewed by: Ken Waters, PhD
Reviewer Affiliation: Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA
Total Pages: 169
ISBN-13:978-1-5140-0252-0
The first faculty member I hired when I became a divisional dean of communication confided in me a decade later that the university and division’s orientation and mentoring programs fell far short of his expectations. He felt abandoned in figuring out many of the details of his job as a tenure-track professor. Thankfully, he was a mid-career hire, so some of the basics, like creating syllabi, grading, and finding a work-life balance, were areas he excelled in already. However, his experience remained with me as I read Cultivating Mentors: Sharing Wisdom in Christian Higher Education, edited by Todd C. Ream, Jerry Pattengale, and Christopher J. Devers.
Across seven chapters authored by experts in higher education, this book offers a comprehensive exploration of mentoring in Christian higher education contexts, with a tri-fold focus on mentoring students, new faculty, and academic staff. The authors also provide useful data that aids institutions and individual mentors in navigating the changing context of today’s multicultural and digitally literate students and young faculty. The book is structured around several key themes:
- Theological foundations of mentorship
- Generational differences and their impact on mentoring
- Onboarding and orientation processes for new faculty
- Diversity and inclusion in mentoring relationships
- Work-life balance and flexible work arrangements
- Practical strategies for effective mentoring
Each chapter provides a different perspective on these themes. To set a context for the chapters to follow, in Chapter 1 David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, summarizes decades of research on emerging generations of students and Christian leaders. One important finding is that social media usage is imbedded in the worldview of Gen Z, those who need mentoring to become successful professors and administrators. The challenge to mentors, most of whom are in the Baby Boomer or Millennial Generation, is to help younger students and faculty sort through this different approach to work, vocation, and calling. Kinnaman also effectively points out the needs of younger scholars and students, including a greater emphasis on mental and emotional health, resilience in dealing with trauma, vocational mentorship, building workplace relationships, and becoming contributors rather than consumers. Sadly, he notes, today’s churches and schools are relatively ineffective at providing students with practical, theologically reflective mentorship.
Tim Clydesdale, the author of three books on mentoring students, discusses vocation and calling, stressing that mentors must help students and young faculty understand the process of discerning vocational fit. A widespread weakness he encounters among many younger people is that they tend to see job offers or service opportunities as coming directly from God and thus respond to them positively, without proper theological reflection or adequate understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and dreams. Thus, a student or recent graduate might jump at the first job or service opportunity without considering how that opportunity might complement one’s vocational calling from God.
In Chapter 3, Margaret Diddams focuses on the onboarding and mentoring process carried out by institutions of Christian higher learning. Most new faculty orientation programs begin with a “retreat” for new faculty. This usually becomes an information dump, with too much information to fully process. What’s needed is ongoing mentorship of new faculty, helping them deal with self-doubts while also helping them perceive how they fit into the community of scholars so they can truly flourish. Diddams’ historical look at models of faculty mentoring is instructive. The traditional model is institutionally focused, providing information to help new employees integrate into the organization. In contrast, an interactional mentoring model recognizes that new employees are individuals with varied gifts and experiences, and mentorship must involve helping them sort out how their skills fit within the organization. Finally, the inclusion model focuses on ensuring that each faculty member feels valued and has psychological ownership in the academic institution, which requires that people feel strongly accepted beyond their teaching, research, and service. This approach begins, she says, even before the search for a new faculty member. To this end, search committees need training on evaluating a person’s resume and their potential contributions to the institution on a personal level, as well as how to avoid bias.
Chapter 4, by Edgardo Colon-Emeric, dean of Duke University’s Divinity School, discusses the role of mentorship in creating a “New We.” His perspective focuses on the mentoring needs of pastors and leaders in the Global South. Many pastors from developing nations attend divinity schools in the United States, where the entire premise of the school is based on a white colonialist way of doing things. Theology schools are at a crossroads as their student population has become more diversified, with more underrepresented minority students than ever. Strong mentoring includes considering their stories of pain and exclusion from mainstream academia. Accepting voices rarely heard in Western-oriented theology schools and churches is challenging work, but it creates a “we” that is more representative of all Christian believers.
In Chapter 5, Rebecca Hong asks us to consider mentoring for work-life balance, or “how we can become more human by being more intentional and purposeful when we gather for work, whether in person or online, and how we value and empower one another to be more whole people when we work in remote and flexible ways” (107). Her concerns stem from observing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic institutions, particularly the advent of hybrid work and the growing burnout among certain groups of employees. She challenges administrators to consider the personal needs of their students and employees if the institution desires to retain some of its young and brightest students, professors, and staff. Allowing employees to work from home occasionally and allowing faculty to use online office hours to meet with students as well as meeting them during office hours or by appointment are hallmarks of thriving academic institutions.
Chapter 6 revisits the culture of emerging generations of students and scholars. Tim Elmore notes that the technology gap is real—younger peoples’ lives are more public and their addiction to their phones is real—but that means they crave interaction with people. In addition, they need to develop the ability to sift through the overwhelming amount of information available in a digital world and interpret it in its context. For these and other reasons, mentors must focus on helping students become resourceful and resilient. Practical strategies to help them develop these qualities include offering them a “scary” experience that challenges their settled lives (such as taking them on a trip to skid row) or assigning students to visit a Hindu temple, a Jewish synagogue, or an ethnic festival. Another is to bring in guest speakers or assign students to shadow a professional in an area of vocational interest. Whatever the activity, the key to developing resourcefulness and resilience is traveling outside one’s comfort zone.
In Chapter 7 Beck Taylor, who has served as president for several universities, provides a fascinating autobiographical account of how mentorship allowed him to thrive at each stop along his varied academic career. While the chapter is an ode to mentors, Beck provides helpful information that can help administrators identify and encourage future institutional leaders. Additionally, he presents strategies for strengthening the mission of the organization.
In the book’s conclusion, Stacy Hammons summarizes the work of each chapter contributor in a way that makes sense of the various approaches and offers suggestions for improving the future of mentorship in academic institutions. In doing so, she provides readers with multiple answers to the pressing question presented in this book: “What can we be doing now to disciple young academicians in their faith and mentor them into their vocations and the expectations of higher education?”(147) As she and other authors note, this is a season of promise or peril as younger generations assume leadership (and mentorship) roles in America’s Christian colleges and universities.
Cultivating Mentors has significant strengths, beginning with its emphasis on the theological underpinnings of mentorship in Christian higher education. The authors argue that effective mentoring must be rooted in Christian theological principles to foster spiritual formation and a sense of calling. The book also tackles important issues of diversity and inclusion in mentoring relationships. It emphasizes the need for institutions to acknowledge diversity and actively work to dismantle privilege and create inclusive environments. It encourages mentors to share their academic stories while helping mentees develop a strong sense of calling and purpose. Another strength of this volume is its recognition that mentorship is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The authors acknowledge the diverse needs of current-day students and faculty from various backgrounds and career stages. The book also raises important questions about the role of mentorship in shaping institutional culture, arguing that effective mentoring of individual faculty members can contribute to broader organizational change and improvement.
One weakness of Cultivating Mentors stems from a strength identified above: addressing such a wide diversity of mentorship relationships somewhat weakens the coherence of its overall narrative. In addition, while the authors provide anecdotes and illustrations of various mentoring mindsets and practices, the book would have benefited from more case studies or practical examples to illustrate its concepts.
In conclusion, this edited volume offers a thoughtful and comprehensive exploration of mentorship in Christian higher education. Its integration of theological principles, attention to generational differences, and focus on practical strategies make it a valuable resource for academic leaders, faculty developers, and mentors in faith-based institutions.