Editor's Choice: an assessment of the association of California community college administrators mentor program.

Since 1988, the Association of California Community College Administrators (ACCCA) has sponsored a statewide mentor program intended to prepare junior-level administrators for senior positions and to create a more diverse pool from which future college leaders can be drawn. This article is an initial report of this program. As the report describes, the mentor program has contributed to the career advancement of proteges. It has also promoted the personal growth of both mentors and proteges. The report concludes with recommendations to strengthen the program, better measure its effectiveness, and encourage replication in other states.

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From the outset of the community college movement, both faculty and junior-level administrators in California's community colleges have understood that, although not required by state law, an earned terminal degree has functioned as a prerequisite for advancement to virtually all senior-level administrative positions, reflecting the influence of recommendations made by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (Vaughan, 1986, p. 34). Since at least the 1980s, when access to senior-level positions became more competitive as the number of community colleges stabilized and, in the specific case of California, the outmoded credentialing system was abandoned, research on the career path of community college administrators has noted the growing importance of other prerequisites to advancement. Among these prerequisites, some have suggested, is the support and guidance of a protege's development by a mentor drawn from the ranks of senior-level community college administrators (Vaughan, 1990, p. 168). Indeed, in a 1984 national study of 1,500 community college administrators, slightly more than half of those at the dean's level or above acknowledged the personal benefit of a mentor's guidance and encouragement (Center for the Study of Higher Education, 1984).

Moreover, just as there is a growing recognition of the importance of mentoring to career advancement, Bohlander and colleagues noted that mentoring has proven to be an effective tool to combat the residual effects of racism and sexism in the workplace (Bohlander, Snell, & Sherman, 2000). In the specific case of the community college, those who have examined the advancement of women and minorities within campuses and districts have argued that mentoring is an essential component to career advancement for these groups (Jones, 1988). In their view, mentoring, along with broadened access to terminal degrees, not only provides for the intergenerational transfer of essential skills, knowledge, and behaviors, but also contributes to the gender and racial diversification of qualified applicants for senior-level administrative positions.

As the U.S. Department of Education (1993) has reported, mentoring typically functions on one of two levels: the natural or the planned. The majority of mentor relationships are of the first type. With respect to community colleges, these relationships develop on an ad hoc basis. A senior-level administrator will voluntarily select a mid-level administrator as a protege and, independent of any structured program, assist that person in developing advanced management skills, acquiring personal contacts, and, most important, becoming socialized into the values that are expected of senior college leadership.

There are relatively few structured mentor programs within the community college sector designed specifically for aspiring junior-level administrators. Although a number of articles have called for the development of such programs (Jones, 1988), a review of the ERIC database reveals fewer than 25 articles, studies, and other publications that describe such programs. In large part, this sparse literature reflects that the majority of mentor programs in education focus almost exclusively on promoting college attendance and completion among at-risk youth (e.g., Pagan & Edwards-Wilson, 2003; Peterman, 2003).

The Mentoring Context

Background

The term mentor is rooted in Western civilization's earliest literature, deriving from Homer's The Odyssey. When upon leaving his island kingdom of Ithaca for the Trojan War, Odysseus placed the instruction of his son, Telemachus, in the hands of Mentor, his old and wise friend. Homer was among the first to describe the basic human process by which an older generation, as a social obligation, passes on its knowledge and skills to youth.

Although mentoring of the natural type has been as integral to the development of leaders in education as in any other field, it has been within only the last 30 years that the education literature has shown a greater awareness of the possibility to enhance the competence of inexperienced administrators through planned mentoring. By contrast, the business literature is rich in case studies discussing mentoring relationships (Taibbi, 1983).

The Mentor's Growing Importance

As community colleges have grown both in size and complexity, awareness of the mentor's importance has grown accordingly among inexperienced community college faculty and administrators who aspire to more challenging positions. The first program to report on its development and outcomes was developed at the College of DuPage (1976) in Illinois in 1976. It is very likely that other planned programs, as well as natural mentoring relationships, were being developed at other community colleges at the same time but were simply not reported in the literature. At that time, the growth in the number of community colleges began to stabilize at approximately 1,000 institutions, and competition for an increasingly limited number of leadership positions heightened the competition among those entering the field as junior-level administrators, causing some to seek ways to enhance their chances for promotion. These young administrators recognized that, as in business, the support of a mentor could provide a degree of competitive advantage beyond the doctorate in this effort, not only by giving them the opportunity to gain field-specific knowledge and a better understanding of successful leadership behavior, but also by having the assistance of a mentor in developing a network of associates who could assist in the process of career development. It seems reasonable that this growing perception of the mentor's importance to the career aspirations of junior-level administrators in an increasingly competitive job market also prompted the community college research community to recognize the full extent of a mentor's contribution to the career advancement of junior-level administrators.

Research Findings

Because the academic community has been more interested in the study of the far more numerous mentor programs designed specifically for at-risk youth, few of either the natural or planned mentor programs at community colleges have been systematically evaluated by objective researchers to measure their effectiveness in terms of protege career advancement. Even programs that are targeted to older students, such as the GE Foundation's Faculty for the Future program, frequently rely on anecdotal reports as their primary vehicle for documenting effectiveness. Follow-up studies are of particular importance, as long-term studies of students have shown, because they enable researchers to make an objective assessment of an intervention's effectiveness when the outcomes of the intervention may not be evident for an extended period of time. In the absence of such a structured study, any mentor program, however apparently successful in the short term, could be so because of the unintended results of self-selection, the Hawthorne effect, or some as-yet-unidentified factor.

In 1988, the Association of California Community College Administrators (ACCCA) established what was the first planned mentor program for aspiring community college leaders in that state. The ACCCA has focused on enhancing the career opportunities of underrepresented mid-level managers working in the nation's largest community college system. Prompted by projections of a potentially serious shortfall of qualified senior-level community college administrators within the next 3 decades and committed to ensuring that its system's senior-level administrators would come to reflect the rich diversity of California's community college students, ACCCA's initial membership of senior-level administrators determined that doctoral programs alone could not provide California's community college system with a pool of diverse and qualified mid-level college administrators prepared to compete for senior-level administrative positions within the system.

Although it is still too early to assess fully the contribution of the ACCCA Mentor Program to individual career advancement, a growing body of scholarly work--including conference papers, journal articles, and at least one dissertation--provides substantial evidence that the ACCCA mentor program has contributed to its general goal of furthering the careers of a diverse group of proteges, not only in California but in other states as well. At the same time, the lack of data required to assess the nature and extent of the program's effects is understandable, given the origins of the program. Created by practitioners to further specific and immediate policy goals, relatively little attention was assigned to the long-term research questions that the program, as it has taken hold and matured, now raises. To what degree, for example, does the career success of a particular protege depend on a match in core personal values with a mentor? Beyond the question of values, do factors such as organizational role, gender, race, or age have any bearing on the success of a mentoring experience? Similarly, what benefits accrue to the mentor as a result of a mentor-protege relationship? Do the benefits accrue to the protege alone, or does the senior-level administrator acquire new skills and attributes as a direct consequence of participation in a planned mentor program?

In retrospect, it is apparent that the ACCCA Mentor Program would have benefited from the concurrent development of an independent objective evaluation. However, it would have been unlikely that the ACCCA leadership could have secured the resources to support a research agenda of any substantial thoroughness. Thus, many questions remain; however, given the substantial nonmonetary costs of the program, in 1988 it was simply more important that ACCCA's limited resources be devoted to building the program itself. There is now substantial anecdotal evidence to suggest that ACCCA's Mentor Program is an effective vehicle for career advancement. Also, given the size and implicit costs of the program, there is ample justification to assess its effectiveness through a long-term, objective, independent research study. Through such an initiative, program leaders would have a more solid basis for identifying the program's specific and exclusive strengths, those areas that could benefit from improvement, and even a common methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of comparable programs in other states and regions (Valeau, 1999).

Existing documentation (Valeau, 1999) already permits the claim that the ACCCA Mentor Program has succeeded in achieving its primary goal of promoting the career development of proteges from underrepresented groups, but this evidence provides insufficient data to evaluate more complex areas, such as the motivations of mentors, the implicit costs to a protege's college, and overall program satisfaction of proteges 5 or even 10 years after participation. Yet such findings are critical to the continued development of ACCCA's program. For example, it is not yet possible to describe with any degree of detail the specific skills, values, and personal ideology that characterize the most effective mentors. Neither is it yet possible to develop an orientation curriculum that could assist mentors in strengthening those competencies essential to success in their role. Furthermore, the program lacks the data to identify most effectively those personal characteristics of proteges that could best align them with available mentors.

Characteristics of the ACCCA Mentor Program and Participants

A prerequisite to fostering a full understanding of mentor programs is developing a definition that applies equally to the community college setting and business or pre-college programs. Because the ACCCA program is one of the oldest planned mentor programs for community college professionals in the nation, operating in a state with nearly 10% of the nation's community colleges, data drawn from a careful analysis of the program offer a basis for developing a broader definition of the mentoring process. Such an analysis can enlarge our understanding of this social process to encompass proteges who have, in many instances, completed their formal schooling. The initial step in developing such a definition in light of the ACCCA program is to examine the processes by which it identifies and then unites proteges and mentors.

Selection of Proteges

Approximately 225 mid-level administrators have been proteges in the ACCCA program since its establishment in 1988. Each applicant understands that, if accepted, he or she will work closely with a senior-level campus or district administrator to gain a broader, more complete understanding of the operation of an individual college or multi-college district. Every applicant is required to be employed as a mid-level administrator within the California community college system and must indicate a desire for significant career advancement within the system. The applicant must also identify the specific area, such as finance, governance, student services, or academic administration in which he or she wishes to acquire greater knowledge and experience, as well as secure the endorsement of his or her most senior campus administrator or immediate supervisor. A formal commitment of no less than one year of program participation is also required.

Acceptance as a protege is not automatic. Each applicant is reviewed for long-term career potential by the program's director and members of ACCCA's Management Development Commission. Based on this review, ACCCA accepts between 15 and 20 proteges every year.

Selection of Mentors

Prior to 1999, ACCCA selected mentors solely from among administrators who held exempt positions such as district chancellor, president, vice president, or dean. Members of ACCCA believed that these mentors were best positioned by their breadth of knowledge and experience to assist proteges in understanding the challenges and pitfalls of a senior leadership role in a community college or system. However, in 1999, ACCCA expanded mentor eligibility to include senior-level classified staff. Included in this new group of potential mentors were directors of financial aid, registrars, and others holding positions of comparable importance.

An administrator who may desire to serve as a mentor must begin by completing ACCCA's mentor application form. This form requires that the applicant commit to assist a protege in developing mastery of those skills and competencies unique to a senior-level administrative position within a community college. Additionally, each applicant must not only provide a detailed description of the specific values, competencies, and contacts he or she will share with a protege, but must also stipulate the amount of time he or she will commit to the program. Based on the number of accepted proteges and the best possible match between a protege's objectives and a mentor's competencies, ACCCA matches each of the 15 to 20 proteges with a mentor for a minimum of one year.

The Learning Contract

A distinctive feature of the ACCCA Mentor Program has been its implementation of a learning contract. Once ACCCA has matched mentors and proteges, all are required to formalize their relationships by means of a learning contract. All proteges and all mentors are required to articulate individual expectations and goals through a process of open dialogue that results in this binding agreement.

One element of the learning contract is that it guarantees each protege not only a relationship with a single mentor but also scheduled opportunities to network with other leaders from across California. These opportunities take place within the context of an orientation session, a meeting with the staff of the state chancellor, and an extended retreat. Yearly, the program concludes with a recognition dinner for all program participants sponsored by ACCCA in conjunction with its annual conference.

Evaluation

Many within the ACCCA leadership believe that a key to the mentor program's success has been the willingness of its mentors to participate despite receiving no monetary support or significant formal orientation. Anecdotally, among the factors that ACCCA's mentors have most often noted as the basis for their perceptions are their willingness to share freely their uncompensated time, personal encouragement, and the opportunity to share their expertise by working directly with a highly motivated protege. With respect to their allocation of time with their proteges, the mentors indicate that it is primarily used to assist proteges in strategically planning their careers, in providing special opportunities for the protege's personal and professional growth, and in opening doors that would otherwise be closed to a junior-level administrator.

To this point, ACCCA has operated its program on the assumption that its mentors have, in fact, been motivated by the factors noted and that, because of their senior leadership positions, they possess all of the necessary competencies to serve effectively in the mentoring role. Similarly, ACCCA has assumed that proteges can be identified through what amounts to the rudimentary screening process already described. Until recently these assumptions were untested, with neither mentors nor proteges being surveyed to assess the quality of their program experience or as a means for ACCCA to gain insight into possible strategies for program enhancement. Yet the ACCCA leadership recognizes that to capitalize fully on the strengths of its mentor program, as well as to make improvements, it is necessary to survey the program's present and past participants. What skills contribute most to a mentor's effectiveness? Do mentors believe that they require assistance from the association or other mentors? Do they also believe that they have specific development needs of their own that can best be addressed by sharing them with other mentors in some structured manner?

In an attempt to provide a foundation for addressing these and related questions, ACCCA developed a multipart survey instrument to begin the process of developing a data set. These data represent a first, but not final, step in replacing anecdotal evidence as the primary means of justifying overall program effectiveness. Moreover, this initiative is designed to assist ACCCA in its desire to gain greater insight into those program modifications that would enhance the protege experience.

A Foundational Study of the ACCCA Mentor Program

Instrument

One Of the useful characteristics of the ACCCA Mentor Program is that it has maintained accurate records on its participants, thereby greatly facilitating its decision to begin a more systematic study of the program. Because of these records, ACCCA was able to locate and survey the 120 mentors who have participated in the program since its inception in 1988. The survey instrument sent to these participants was divided into three parts. Part A solicited basic demographic data on the current and former mentors, including years of community college employment, years of employment as a senior-level administrator, and highest degree earned. Part B consisted of a series of multiple-choice questions that examined reasons for program participation, recommendations for program focus, the respondents' perspective on core community college values, and their expectations for the program's impact on protege career development. Part C consisted of open-ended questions designed to gather recommendations for program improvement in areas such as mentor orientation and development, selection criteria for mentors and proteges, and proteges' expectations.

An initial mailing of the survey instrument was made to the 120 mentors. Later, a duplicate instrument was mailed to those who had not yet responded. A total of 40 useful instruments were returned, for a response rate of 33%. Although some may argue that the response rate was insufficient to form the basis of sound generalizations, it is important to keep in mind that this survey represents a first step in a research process that should, in time, provide higher response rates and give researchers the ability to weigh the returns based on a respondent's study classification.

Findings

In response to questions in Part A, almost 60% of the respondents classified themselves as senior executives. Sixty-eight percent reported that they were Caucasian, followed by African American and Latino (15% each). More than half (56%) reported the doctorate (PhD or EdD) as their highest earned degree.

A closer examination of the educational experience of mentors suggests some points worth noting. Although highest degree earned by the majority of respondents (45%) was in education, other degrees held were widely scattered among disciplines. At least for this group of mentors, it could be argued that there is no common pattern of education prerequisite to doctoral studies or employment as a senior-level community college administrator in California. If this finding is also true for the general population of community college leaders, then it might be inferred that these leaders (and perhaps those preparing to follow them) experience significant gaps in several key cognate areas. These deficiencies could range from fields as diverse as accounting and rhetoric, even though the competencies associated with these fields would appear to be useful, if not essential, to the daily work of community college administrators. Awareness of specific personal deficiencies in various cognate areas, such as accounting, personnel management, or statistics might provide the basis for the concern with the current state of formal education among new and emerging community college leaders. This concern may be one of the factors that has encouraged the development of complementary learning modalities, such as mentoring, alongside traditional doctoral programs. Assessment and development of community college leaders is also a primary goal of the American Association of Community Colleges' Leading Forward initiative, supported by the W.W. Kellogg Foundation.

On a very cautionary note, the demographic data reported on Part A suggests that a substantial percentage of potential mentors may be approaching retirement age and thus may be unable to contribute to a stable mentor program. Of the respondents, none had been employed in higher education for fewer than 16 years; 85% had been employed for more than 25 years. These findings strongly suggest that future researchers closely examine the long-term availability of experienced mentors, the lack of which may place an effective cap on the size of ACCCA's program.

Part B of the survey gave the respondents the opportunity to assess their personal mentorship experience and to make a more global assessment of the program. On average, mentors reported having spent between one and two hours per week meeting exclusively with proteges, suggesting that mentors and proteges met, on average, between 50 and 100 hours annually. The respondents were also overwhelmingly positive in assessing the nature of their program participation. Sixty-three percent characterized their experience as "very positive," and another 29% classified it as "somewhat positive." In addition, 97% of the respondents indicated that they would recommend the program to potential mentors and proteges, and 92% stated that they would participate in the program again. When asked why they would serve again as a mentor, 20% expressed that it allowed them to share their acquired administrative experience with a protege, and another 20% felt that it furthered their own personal development. This last finding is of particular significance, for it suggests that many mentors, once they have been orientated to the program, would continue to serve. This group would provide a stable base on which to strengthen and expand the ACCCA program, bringing its opportunity to a greater number of underrepresented junior-level administrators.

As Part B responses also show, 40% of the respondents believed that the single most valuable experience as a mentor was contributing to a protege's professional growth. More specifically, these mentors believed that their work assisted the protege in developing into an independent and effective administrator, provided the protege with a broader insight into his or her professional role, and assisted the protege in developing realistic career expectations. The conditions that the respondents thought contributed most directly to an effective mentor-protege relationship were as follows: a willingness on the mentor's part to commit the required time (48%), accessibility to the protege (35%), being a good listener (33%), and being open and candid with the protege (33%). Additionally, in rank order, those program factors that the mentors identified as most often contributing to program success began with a successful mentor-protege match (45%), a well-organized program (23%), clarity of program goals (20%), regular follow-up of protege attainments (20%), and outcome-focused meetings with proteges (20%).

In their open-ended responses, the respondents answered specific questions on the value of the assistance they had received as mentors from ACCCA. One fourth of the respondents stated that a compilation of information containing items such as journal articles on mentoring was the most valuable support they had received. Furthermore, 38% indicated that the addition of guidelines listing the program's expectations for both mentors and proteges, combined with more detailed information about possible activities to realize these expectations, would have been of the most help to mentors. Interestingly, the respondents did not comment to any significant degree on the value of the learning contract to the mentor-protege relationship.

Conclusion

The survey responses, combined with the experience of ACCCA leaders in managing the program, form the basis for a number of recommendations, which, if adopted, should improve the program's overall effectiveness. Proponents believe that adoption of these recommendations would strengthen the program by enhancing the diversity of mentors and proteges, by better matching proteges and mentors in terms of personal goals and characteristics, and by providing both groups with a more structured and goal-oriented experience. Furthermore, the implementation of the recommended annual evaluation process and the creation of a control group could be replicated in other states and regions with comparable programs to provide a basis for a broader assessment of mentoring's value as a tool for career advancement and for the greater diversification of community college leadership.

Recommendations

1. Develop specific and role-relevant criteria to be applied for the evaluation and acceptance of mentors. The desire to assist an inexperienced protege should not be the sole factor in selecting a mentor. Mentor candidates should be required to complete a self-assessment, expanding on their motives for participating in the program. This self-assessment could then be used by the ACCCA selection committee in matching mentors and proteges.

2. Expand the pool of potential mentors. Consideration might be given to including trustees, chief officers of college-affiliated foundations, senior-level members of the state chancellor's staff, and civic leaders.

3. Ensure that the mentor and protege application forms collect data that will facilitate long-term evaluation of program effectiveness.

4. Incorporate a formal annual evaluation process for both proteges and mentors. Construct the process to allow for the measurement of change in both mentors and proteges over time, both individually and as a group.

5. Select a sample of junior-level administrators who do not participate in the program and monitor their career progress to provide a control group.

6. Ensure that the contract between each protege and mentor clearly specifies attainable outcomes, including those that go beyond career advancement. The annual review process should provide the necessary forum for documenting a protege's full development, including growth in his or her understanding of the need to act independently within a broad policy framework, knowledge of system organization and governance, funding, efficient programming, the introduction of new learning technologies, improving student satisfaction, and meeting community development objectives.

* This article is published as an Editor Choice selection. Editor's Choice articles are selected by the editorial of the Community College Review and have not gone through the peer review process.

References

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College of DuPage. (1976). College of DuPage Administrative Internship Program. Glen Ellyn, IL: Author. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED129347)

Jones, S. (1988). Moving up: Advancement strategies for women in higher education. Journal of the American Association of Women in Community and Junior Colleges.

Pagan, R., & Edwards-Wilson, R. (2003). A mentoring program for remedial students. Journal of College Student Retention, 4(3), 207-226.

Peterman, D. S. (2003). Student peer mentoring in community colleges. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 27, 255-258.

Taibbi, R. (1983). Supervisors as mentors. Social Work, 28, 237-238.

U.S. Department of Education. (1993, October). Mentoring (Education Consumer Guide Series No. 7). Retrieved February 20, 2004, from http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/mentor.html

Valeau, E. J. (1999). Editor's choice: Memoring: The Association of California Community Colleges Project. Community College Review, 27 (3), 33-46.

Vaughan, G. B. (1986). The community college presidency. New York: Macmillan.

Vaughan, G. B. (1990). The pathway to the presidency: Community college deans of instruction. Washington, DC: Community College Press.

Edward J. Valeau is president and superintendent of Hartnell Community College. [e-mail]

George R. Boggs is president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges. [e-mail]