The FSA Mentoring Scheme aims to foster a strong feminist community that encourages supportive and collegial relationships between members of the Association. The scheme is for FSA members who have passed their PhDs and are early- or mid-career scholars.
Mentees will be paired with a more experienced mentor who is able to pass on advice or share experiences. With academic work becoming ever more precarious and competitive, the aim of the mentoring scheme is to counter this environment with a collective feminist politics and provide a support system for feminist colleagues. Having received supervisory support during their PhD work, some researchers find guidance at this point of the academic career trajectory to be lacking. In particular, the FSA aims to support those without institutional provisions or other sources of mentorship.
The mentoring meetings may focus on issues, challenges or experiences relating to academic matters, job applications, publications and research, teaching tips, career anxieties, academic politics, feminist mobilising in academia, inequalities and academia, intersectionality and academia etc. This is not an exhaustive list and it will be up to the individual mentors/mentees to decide; please specify in your application what support you require and your preferences.
Mentees will be introduced to their mentor by email, and we envisage that this will be an informal relationship to provide good counsel. It is a supportive, one-to-one relationship, within a confidential and supportive environment, and based on mutual trust. The mentoring relationship will last 12 months over the academic year (October-September). We suggest that once mentors and mentees are matched by FSA that they mutually agree the expectations of the coming year. Mentors and mentees may wish to stay in touch afterwards, but this is not a formal agreement.
I found this scheme invaluable and it has been central to my navigation of the post-PhD period, where guidance is often lacking. My mentor was a joy to talk to and thoroughly approachable on all topics. Thank you FSA.
This was a deeply enriching, well-supported scheme to be part of. As a mentor I learnt from my mentee and I hope the other way around, just as it should be. I am so pleased I was asked to do this – it has been a joy.
The mentor’s role is:
- To provide confidential advice and support at an agreed mutually convenient time (in person, by email, skype or telephone).
- To maintain confidentiality and respect for others in the scheme.
- The amount of contact between the mentor and mentee is flexible, although we would suggest a minimum of 4 meetings and a maximum of 8 in the 12 month period.
Please note, we do not expect mentors:
- To read drafts of work, although they might be happy to do so.
- To write references, although they might be happy to do so.
- To provide mentoring outside of working hours.
The mentee’s role is:
- To consider what they want to get out of the scheme before they have been matched and inform their mentor.
- To take into account their mentor’s workload and recognise that this is a relationship based on goodwill, and not expect unreasonable demands or requests of your mentor that have not been agreed.
- To maintain confidentiality and respect for others in the scheme.
The FSA’s role (Co-chairs and Mentoring Scheme Officer) is:
- To match up mentees’ individual requirements and mentors’ skills, to the best of our ability.
- To resolve any issues or challenges that might arise from the scheme. Confidentiality may have to be broken in exceptional circumstances if this is the case.
- To undertake an informal review at the end of the year to improve the scheme in the future.
Mentors (2020/21)
- Dr Karina Aveyard (Senior Lecturer in Media, Arts and Humanities, University of East Anglia)
- Prof Sarah Banet-Weiser (Professor of Media & Communications, LSE)
- Dr Anna Bull (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Portsmouth)
- Dr Maria do Mar Pereira (Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Warwick)
- Dr Maryam Ghorbankarimi (Lecturer in Film Practice, Lancaster University)
- Dr Sharon Lockyer (Reader in Sociology & Communications, Brunel University London)
- Dr Geetha Marcus (Senior Lecturer in the Division of Psychology, Sociology and Education, Queen Margaret University)
- Dr Ala Sirriyeh (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Lancaster University)
- Dr Karen Throsby (Associate Professor, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds)
- More TBC
How to apply:
- If you are interested in applying to the scheme, please send your CV, a 500 word max statement of need for mentoring, and a 500 word max statement on how you envisage you would make use of the mentoring relationship (i.e. for research advice, teaching advice, intersectionality and academia, inequalities and academia etc) to mentoring@the-fsa.co.uk. Any information you share is confidential to the Co-chairs and Mentoring Officer at the FSA, please see our Privacy Policy.
- We will prioritise applicants based on need, so please supply a clear case for why you are in need of mentorship in your application. Where possible, we will match mentors and mentees based on research interests.
- All mentees need to be members of FSA on applying for the scheme. Mentees must be working or have studied in a UK or Irish Institution. PhD students will be considered in exceptional circumstances. If you are a PhD student and wish to apply, please make this clear in your application.
Apply to the mentoring scheme
To apply to the mentoring scheme, please follow ‘How to apply’ and send us your CV and statements. The deadline for the 2020/21 round is Thursday 1st October 2020