The Elegant Mentor

Tim Jacobson, a lonely widower, has been struggling to find a sense of purpose ever since he retired from a thirty-five-year career in education. When he reconnects with his high school English teacher, she reminds him of the talent he'd had for writing and encourages him to nurture it. Reluctantly he agrees. Cutting between Tim's short stories and Tim's metamorphosis, "The Elegant Mentor" enables us to experience his passion for writing. Though his subjects vary widely, he focuses on issues that intrigue him, ones that were not openly discussed in his teacher's day. "The Elegant Mentor" takes a heartfelt look at friendship, the bridging of generations, and the small miracles that occur when one dares to tread a new path. About the Author Gene Munger, a native of Missouri, moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1997. He is a volunteer with the St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance, United Way, Coconino County Literacy Volunteers, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and the American Red Cross. His first book, "Momma, Don't Ya Want Me to Learn Nothin'?," is a memoir capturing his early life in southeast Missouri during the 1940s and '50s.

Mentoring is very much more than simple one-to-one informal instruction, or what used to be called ‘coaching’. Modern mentoring techniques are modelled on those of executive coaching as well as expert academic tutoring. Mentoring is simple but not necessarily easy. An estimated 40% of all mentoring schemes fail through lack of mentor training and understanding. No great effort is required to study the literature but, for mentoring to be effective, adherence to basic principles and exercising specific skills is absolutely necessary. The book provides an introduction to what we mean by mentoring and its basic skills – skilful questioning, active listening, building trust, self-management and giving advice and feedback. It further covers mentoring principles, how to conduct mentoring sessions and a wide range of practical applications. The final chapter gives the outlines and principles for creating a basic mentoring scheme within an organisational context. This book is written for those practitioners in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the STEM fields, who have been pitched into the role of mentor without any prior training. Its objective is to alleviate anxiety, frustration and stress caused by not knowing exactly what is expected. In offering an introduction to mentoring it gives practical guidance as a quick and easy read.

Mentors are people who make a significant difference to the lives of others, lifting them out of being ordinary and leading them to an almost magical transformation. This book is a comprehensive guide to the intricate world of mentoring in organizational settings. Based on the author’s pioneering research and wide-ranging practice, this book unravels the entire mentoring process, from building the mentor-mentee relationship to the precautions that need to be taken and the ways in which organizational goals can be attained. He also discusses: – The skills of a good mentor – How the mentor’s mind works, and the values and attitudes she/he must have – The mentor’s code of ethics – How to handle tricky situations relating to power, authority, and gender issues – How to set up a successful mentoring scheme in an organization Enriched with actual cases and the experiences of people undergoing mentoring, this book is a powerful tool for understanding and practice.

The SAGE Handbook of Mentoring provides a scholarly, comprehensive and critical overview of mentoring theory, research and practice across the world. Internationally renowned authors map out the key historical and contemporary research, before considering modern case study examples and future directions for the field. The chapters are organised into four areas: The Landscape of Mentoring The Practice of Mentoring The Context of Mentoring Case Studies of Mentoring Around the Globe This Handbook is a resource for mentoring academics, students and practitioners across a range of disciplines including business and management, education, health, psychology, counselling, and social work.

The book explores how mentoring, theoretical background of mentoring and how mentoring is used by nurses in all arenas where they work in health care, education, research, policy, politics, and academia in supporting nurses with their professional and career development. Over 300 mentors and mentees, from a wide range of countries across all continents, share their stories of mentoring reflecting on their development in leadership, clinical practice, education, research and politics. The book describes various types of mentoring including more traditional types of mentoring as well as virtual, online and peer mentoring. During the mentorship trajectories the nurses address an inclusive collection of issues that they are faced with and share supporting strategies. The book highlights the importance of mentoring for nurses to support their personal, and professional leadership development. Also, it emphasizes the importance of mentoring for when nurses engaged in variety of projects that could entail or encompass evidence-based clinical practice, development within education, research in the clinical arena, policy formation, political affairs, or cultural inclusion that present significant impact in patient care and healthcare outcomes within and across countries. With The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity report from the National Academies of Sciences, published in 2021, the role of nursing will become ever more dynamic and therefore the profession of nursing must be visible in improving and securing the future for patients, families, and communities across the globe. Mentoring practices to build the profession’s leaders are forever essential, acute, and imperative. This book shows how mentoring can support nurses in further developing nursing as a profession and scientific discipline across countries to support clinical application of evidence based practice, and nursing education and research dissemination. Accordingly, this book shares essential, diverse and pioneering expertise through wide range of narrative stories that will benefit nurses at all years of experience, from early career nurses, emerging leaders, nurse educators, leaders, policy makers and nurse scientists around the globe. The nursing profession must magnify its position in health care and nurses need to proliferate their contributions throughout the globe. They can accomplish that through mentoring and “growing and nurturing other nurses” to advance and thrive in today’s world.

This work is a story about a foreign student who strove to study biophysics under the guidance of renowned scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and then pursued postdoctoral training in neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Later, he worked on brain research as a faculty at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It aims to make a belated yet respectful and heartfelt tribute to his revered and beloved mentors who have inspired and wisely guided the humble foreign student and his dear, kind friends who helped the alien stranger find a new home in this New World. It is a retrospective reflection of long-past events late in the narrator’s life. It was primarily based on his fragmentary shorthand diaries, scribbled on small notepads. The letters from his mentors in biophysics, molecular biology, and neuroscience were quoted in the text as they were vital to overcoming the long hesitation in writing this reflection.