Available:*
Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010053840 | TA157 W28 2002 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
On Order
Summary
Summary
Transitions are difficult. From high school to college, college to the job force, from one job to another. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find your place in society because of the impersonal structure of many businesses and organizations out there. More and more people are looking to qualified colleagues to provide them with key guidance throughout the evolution of their careers. For many, that key is mentoring. Mentoring is defined as significant personal and professional assistance given by a more experienced person during a time of transition. Personal assistance involves role modeling and encouraging, while professional assistance includes educating and sponsoring. This book contains several descriptions of a successful mentoring program, and how participants related to the program, to each other, and to the program's lasting effects on their lives, both personal and professional. It has definitions and narratives for a set of twelve paired actions (such as trusting/doubting, forgiving/condemning, and accepting/rejecting) that the administrator, Emily M. Wadsworth, "caught" in her personal life and "cast" in her professional endeavors. Her experiences are then matched with the stories of twelve former team members who used their understanding of Wadsworth's lessons to describe how they caught and recast an action in their own personal and professional existences. Recommended for educators, personnel managers, and anyone interested in personal growth.
Author Notes
Emily M. Wadsworth earned a BFA Degree at Cornell University, a MS degree at Oregon State University, and a PhD degree at Purdue University. She was the creator and administrator, from 1991-1999, for both the Undergraduate and Graduate Mentoring Programs for females in the Schools of Engineering at Purdue. The programs were recognized in 1997 with a Presidential Award for Excellence in Engineering Mentoring from President William Clinton at the White House. This particular award was and is administered by the National Science Foundation.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
This is a difficult book to characterize and even more difficult to evaluate. It is both a description of a network-mentoring program for women in engineering and accounts by participants in the program of how it affected their lives. Although no precise statistics are offered, the author claims that "retention rates dramatically increased for female undergraduate engineering students who participated" in this program. The mentoring groups were organized around 12 polarities, such as welcoming/excluding, communicating/bickering, accepting/rejecting, reframing/stagnating, balancing/tilting, focusing/blurring, and so on. The book focuses on the 12 polarities; it is the author's contention that once these opposing forces are recognized, they can be harnessed in constructive ways; and each chapter tries to illustrate this by including personal stories by the participants who successfully used these techniques to move forward and act with power and understanding. Parts of the text read like a self-help manual, and indeed the jacket blurb suggests that this book would be valuable to anyone interested in personal growth. In no way a scholarly study and in many ways undifferentiated and bland, this book provides little by way of substance. ^BSumming Up: Not recommended. M. H. Chaplin Wellesley College
