K-SAA Mentoring Program - Deadline 30th September!

The deadline for applications for the K-SAA Mentoring Program is fast approaching, so be sure to send your applications by Monday 30th September. We're looking not only for prospective protégés, but also Romanticist mentors, working at an Associate Professor level or higher, who are willing to pass on advice to less experienced members of the profession.The Mentoring Program is designed to aid junior scholars in the crucial early stages of their academic careers. The Mentoring Program aims to formalize one of the Association’s most important features–the exchange of expertise and practical professional information between junior and senior scholars. Through this program, senior scholars can offer to be mentors for a protégé on the specific scholarly or professional topic(s) of their choosing (e.g., Mary Shelley, teaching generalist courses in a small institution, etc.). Junior scholars can request a mentor by describing their own scholarly interests and professional concerns. Mentors and protégés commit to one year of conversation (vocal, written, and/or electronic). By volunteering, mentors commit themselves to being interlocutors only. It is not a condition of participating in this program that mentors act as professional advocates for their protégés (for example, by writing letters of recommendation for cases of tenure or promotion or for grant proposals), though of course they may do so if they wish.Prospective Mentors. We welcome offers to serve as mentors from Romanticists at the Associate Professor level or higher. Although volunteers need not be members of the K-SAA, we welcome them to join the Association. You can volunteer by sending us a short email providing your contact information and affiliation, as well as the authors or topics of interest to you. We hope that the Mentoring Project will appeal particularly to those who are retired faculty or who are teaching at non-PhD-granting institutions and who might enjoy an opportunity to pass on advice, expertise, and street-wisdom to younger members of the profession.Prospective Protégés. Any junior Romanticist working on authors and topics that fall under the umbrella of the K-SAA, and who has completed the PhD but has not yet earned tenure, is invited to request a mentor. Membership in the K-SAA is not a requirement for applicants, but anyone accepting a mentor must join the Association. Your request should consist of a C.V. and a one- or two-sentence description of what you are looking for in a mentor. We particularly encourage junior scholars to apply who find themselves at smaller institutions where they may not have access to other scholars in their field or discipline.Timetable. Mentoring matches are made in the early fall of each year, so please submit your offers and requests by September 30. (If you find you do have outstanding needs during the academic year, however, feel free to write and we will attempt to find someone to work with you at that time). If we do not have a sufficient number of mentors for the applicants, preference will be granted to protégés with the longest memberships in the K-SAA.We are committed to bringing more junior and senior scholars into mutual conversation and to offering concrete support to the rising generation of scholars.Contact. Please contact Stephen Behrendt (sbehrendt1 [at] unl [dot] edu) to apply to be a protégé, to volunteer to be a Mentor, or to ask questions about this program.