Vicki L. Baker

Developmental networks and learning: toward an interdisciplinary perspective on identity development during doctoral study

The authors draw on two families of theories – developmental networks and sociocultural perspectives on learning – to develop an interdisciplinary approach to the study of doctoral education as a path to the professoriate. This approach seeks to elucidate the connection between doctoral students’ developmental networks, what they learn during their graduate experience (including their learning about the faculty role) and how they develop a professional identity. The authors first discuss the key tenets of the developmental networks and sociocultural perspectives, before exploring their alignments and explaining how the combination might remedy the limitations inherent in each approach. Finally, they offer some research propositions and directions for further study of the preparation of doctoral students for academic careers.

Beyond Mentoring and Advising: Toward Understanding the Role of Faculty “Developers” in Student Success

It is old news that interactions between students and faculty enhance student learning. In this article, Vicki Baker and Kimberly Griffin offer another role for faculty in their relationships with students—that of developer.

Mentoring: A Typology of Costs for Higher Education Faculty

In this theoretical paper, we apply a social exchange framework to understand mentors’ negative experiences. We propose a typology of costs, categorized according to psychosocial and career mentoring functions. Our typology generates testable research propositions. Psychosocial costs of mentoring are burnout, anger, and grief or loss. Career costs of mentoring include diminished reputation, decrease in productivity, and risk of ethical transgressions. The typology focuses on faculty in higher education because of the prevalence and importance of mentoring in that work setting. However, the typology may be extended to career arenas such as law, medicine, and the military. The theory presents a framework for acknowledging negative experiences and the costs associated with mentorship.

Process Challenges and Learning-Based Interactions in Stage 2 of Doctoral Education: Implications from Two Applied Social Science Fields

This article reports on an exploratory study that examined the transition to independence in Stage 2 of the doctoral student experience in two applied social science fields. We rely on an interdisciplinary framework that integrates developmental networks and sociocultural perspectives of learning to better understand the connection between the challenges in Stage 2 of the doctoral education process and students’ learning-based behavioral responses to such challenges during this critical transition. Results indicate the presence of three types of process challenges in Stage 2: structural, interpersonal, and individual. Results also point to a range of behavioral responses to such challenges and their relative effectiveness in advancing doctoral student learning towards becoming independent scholars. We conclude with directions for future research and practice.

Antecedents and outcomes: theories of fit and the study of doctoral education

This paper explores fit as an important theoretical construct in the study of doctoral education and doctoral student development. We discuss how research based on three types of fit (person–environment fit, person–culture fit, person–vocation fit) may provide critical insights into the doctoral student experience, and offer a framework based on antecedents and outcomes to support future research. We conclude with an application of this framework to two understudied populations of doctoral students and future research directions.

Faculty as Mentors in Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work: Motivating and Inhibiting Factors.

In this study, we sought to contribute to research about the high-impact practice of undergraduate research from the understudied faculty perspective. We relied on focus group data from faculty members (N = 41) across five institutions to better understand the supporting and inhibiting factors that contribute to faculty members’ engagement in mentoring undergraduate research. We offer implications for research and practice.

Mentor-protégé fit Identifying and developing effective mentorship across identities in doctoral education

Purpose – The aim of this conceptual paper is to explore Mentor-protege fit as important to the selection and development of successful doctoral student–faculty mentoring relationships. We suggest that the student–faculty relationship in doctoral education is an additional and previously untested type of Mentor-protege fit. Design/methodology/approach – Generated from an existing framework of identity in the academy, we explore how three types of identity (professional, relational, personal) may influence students’ fit assessments as they seek to initiate and develop relationships. Findings – We offer propositions for research to further explore the potential application of the proposed framework to knowledge generation about the doctoral student experience. Originality/value – While the research about doctoral education has considered all three aspects of students’ identities individually, it has not explicated the ways in which these intersecting identities relate to students’ needs and expectations rel...

Academic departments as networks of informal learning: faculty development at liberal arts colleges

In this article, we consider the role of departmental contexts and relationships in faculty work within liberal arts colleges. Knowledge about how departmental networks relate to success and satisfaction may inform the work of those who support faculty work in liberal arts colleges, as well as other institution types. Analysis of quantitative and qualitative survey data from faculty members at 13 liberal arts colleges in the US suggests that informal departmental relationships influence faculty experiences. Findings suggest that departmental leaders and colleagues are sources of professional development and support, but that counter-productive behaviours interfere with such support and foster negative workplace cultures.

IDENTITY AS A THEORETICAL CONSTRUCT IN RESEARCH ABOUT ACADEMIC CAREERS

In this chapter, we review the ways in which scholars have conceptualized and relied on the notion of identity to understand the academic career. We explore the use of identity as a theoretical construct in research about the experience of being an academic. We discuss the individual and organizational factors that scholars have focused on when seeking to understand the role of professional and personal identity in academic careers, as well as recent and emerging shifts in the use of identity within this line of scholarship. Research suggests that if we are to understand the future of the academic career, we must understand the identities of its current and prospective members and, more importantly, how those identities shape goals, behaviors, and outcomes. We close with recommendations for future research and theory development.

People Strategy in Human Resources: Lessons for Mentoring in Higher Education

In this article, I offer the notion of alignment, a human resources framework, as a conceptual tool for better informing the development of mentoring programming and policy in higher education. Alignment accounts for both individual and organizational factors as means for providing the necessary connections among human resources and organizational policies and outcomes. The three types of alignment: Vertical (connection between people strategy and business goals), horizontal (connection among individual HR policy areas), and implementation (the degree to which action is taken to put the people strategy into effect) have the potential to improve the efficacy of mentorships, the contextual factors that influences them, and the intended outcomes of these relationships.