40) What is a good mentor? (in progress)

I claim no special expertise as a mentor but do have an interest in helping junior scholars. I know I have benefited from a good deal of mentoring over the years.

so, what is mentoring? If one looks at the popular literature on business mentoring, I think it's a mix
of (i) collaboration; (ii) guidance; (iii) empowerment and (iv) friendship.

Really, if you're a junior person, no single person can provide

What are the barriers?
- The things that make me a good mentor also work against being a mentor. Namely, as I get older and get more experience, I find that people begin to react more to my position and experience than to what I'm actually saying. I find that I can come across as a bully even when it's not intended. I recently told a student, "This [the statistical plan in the dissertation] just makes no sense, and if you want to go ahead with it, you should just boot me off. I won't be offended." I was being honest. Really, if the advisor thinks it makes sense, then it's ok with me. I just don't want to be involved. I'm just being me, but I know it comes across in a different way than it did when I was an assistant professor.

- one problem really involves failures on the part of the mentees. Mentor-mentee relationships are dyadic. So, not all failures are the part of the mentee. Really, like any other area of life, some people just have to learn the hard way. Young people who are used to excelling can find it hard to take assistance.

As a journal assoc. editor, my notes to junior authors are always direct. Some write back and say "thank you--I'm really going to take your comments seriously when I submit to another journal". I always write back say "that fix-it attitude is going to take you a long way in the business". As with the rest of life, there are those poeple who would rather sulk.

- some of the roles really are in conflict with each other. At times, it's hard to provide realistic feeback and maintain friendships. At times, good advice doesn't generate warm fuzzies on the part of the hearer.

And then there is the issue that the hearer can take negative feedback personally. For example, if I tell a junior person that "You're not gong to advance writing one paper every other year", it's not meant personally. He or she is not disappointing me personally. But it's like a law of gravity--if one doesn't write papers, then the consequences are as predictable as gravity. It's not personal.

And then in some instances, some aspects of mentoring are just not possible. It's going to be hard for me to collaborate with a person who does research on the aging. And some junior people have interests that would fit on a postage stamp. (The profession probably generates a focus paranoia on the part of junior people, a story for another day.)

Another tricky issue--a good mentor keeps developmental processes in mind. A good mentor puts mentees in a position to stand on their own. I fear I have a problem with breeding "Mike depency". My goal as a mentor is not to serve as a permanent resource. An individual gets a suitable amount of resources and then I cut them loose (or try). I feel like there are new groups of junior people who need my assistance. For them to get it, the earlier mentees need to move on.

39) in what ways has cancer changed your thinking?

I guess it's a tie.
1) assisted suicide

I definitely was in favor of it and remain so, but I can see all sorts of problems now.
Basically, you want to do it before you get too ill or rather too close to being too ill. If you wait too long, you leave your relatives with a hard task to accomplish. And of course, if you don't wait too long, you run the risk of leaving too soon.

and then there's the wrinkle of one's spouse and relatives. Following the paths of others with cancer, it seems clear that spouses can have different ideas about the proper course. In some instances, the spouse thinks the person with cancer should "tough it out". "How can you leave me?"

What a mess.

2) survivor's guilt
boy, I'd heard soliders speak of this, but I never "got it". Before I felt like, "gee, why would you feel bad about something that didn't happen to you? Heck, what good would it do the dead guy for you to be dead, too".

I don't know what it is, but to see others with cancer get a much tougher hand to play just leaves you feeling empty. I don't know how to describe it. Just somehow, it doesn't seem so unfair that I have cancer. What seems so unfair is that I've got it but am playing a better hand than others. Maybe it's the bond you feel with the other folks with cancer. I don't know how to describe it. But it's a damn empty feeling.

Some of it is that it is frightening. You realize that "hey, that could be me", which morphs into "Hey, that will be me".

I guess to say cancer has changed my thinking would include that it has confused it.

38) [Barack O] Is america post-racial?

Thanks, BO, for stopping by my blog--I know you must be busy....

That America elected a black man as president is surely astounding. I’m middle aged, and I never thought it would happen in my lifetime. Commentators are now wondering whether America has indeed become a “post-racial” society. Such a declaration of victory, however, would be premature, to say the least. Race still matters a great deal in terms of the lived experience of America’s citizens. We’ve taken a step in the right direction, but the journey to a post-racial society continues.

Is there evidence to support my claim? Such evidence abounds. Just start with Barrack Obama’s peers. Black men are still marginalized in our society. About one in three men of Obama’s age have been incarcerated. Only one in five, however, have a college degree. Only one in fifty have a professional degree like Obama. Indeed by any standard, Obama is a statistical aberration. By any standard, he is extraordinary.

But perhaps we can depend on the role of race to dissolve going forward. A variety of factors suggest that such hopes are wishful thinking. Black children are still twice as likely to be poor in any given year. And the picture only gets worse if we look at deeper disadvantages. They are three times as likely as white children to live in families whose income is less than half of that required to escape poverty. And when they are poor, black children spend longer periods in poverty.

Nonetheless, perhaps educational opportunities will dissolve these differences. That, too, is unlikely. Currently, the gap in educational opportunities creates differences in possibilities for children of different colors that will last for at least another generation. Researchers at the Brookings Institution report that “in contrast to European and Asian nations that fund schools centrally and equally, the wealthiest 10 percent of U.S. school districts spend nearly 10 times more than the poorest 10 percent, and spending ratios of 3 to 1 are common within states”.

But what about access to higher education? Aren’t programs like the Carolina Promise making a difference? Black enrollment in higher education may be rising, but minorities are under-represented, especially at the highest tier of institutions. Only about 10% of the class of 2008 at UNC is African-American. This percentage is less than half of the percentage of the state’s population that is African-American.

Well, perhaps the youth are faring better when we look at other dimensions? Perhaps the racial difference in criminal justice involvement is shrinking over time. North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention data, however, reveal that African American youth were twice as likely to be involved in the juvenile justice system. What about other public systems, such as the child welfare system? One again finds over-representation of African-American youth. In North Carolina, black children are twice as likely to be involved in child welfare as white children.

There are a variety of explanations for these differences and what they represent. A good portion of the difference reflects opportunity. Social scientists can demonstrate that when one compares like with like—i.e., poor children living in households headed by high school dropouts—black children fare as well as if not better than their white counterparts. The story is complicated, and some of the difference is unexplained. But opportunity clearly plays a key role.

Some of these differences in opportunity are beyond the control of policy makers. Their ability to stimulate couples of any color to marry, for example, is rather limited. However, some key factors do reflect policy choices. For example, a punitive juvenile justice system that offers little or no rehabilitation or education is one that will penalize individuals but also only preserve racial differences in our society. Other public systems, such as child welfare, play a similar role in preserving a society where race matters. Continued reliance on property taxes as the base for school funding contributes as well.

Still, all is not lost. The proverbial glass is indeed half full, but the appearance of progress is defined partly by our society’s dreadful track record in dealing with race. Obama’s election is a good sign. What it tells me is that when a black youth gets an opportunity, he or she can succeed. However, Obama is clearly an extraordinary person. What his election reveals is that it is still the unusual black youth to overcome the mountain of disadvantages that our society puts between him or her and success.

So, America is not post-racial, but we did take an important step. America, however, will only be post-racial when the average white voter looks at a poor black child—any poor black child—and thinks “hey, that kid might be our next president”. We’re not there yet.

37) [Andrew Young] What does Obama's election mean to you?

I was just astounded by the effect the election has had on me.

Part of it, I think, is the end of embarrassment about being American. The last eight years have been just dreadful. Anyway you slice it, starting a war justified with lies that resulted in 600,000 people killed is worse than 9/11. Maybe it's not wise to say it, but the world would have been better off with 3,000 more dead Americans than hundreds of thousands of dead people. Not that we deserved 9/11--but the people of Iraq didn't deserve that war either.

But I think what has happened is that I've gotten healing about race relations, something I've been pained about all my life. I was raised a Virginian. Maybe it's like being a Texan, but when you're raised in Richmond, your heroes are Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, James Mason, James Madison and George Washington. I was really raised to worship those men. I went to their homes when I was a boy, visited the great sites (like the church where PH gave the "give me liberty or give me death" speech, etc. I also went to school in Colonial Williamsburg.

And of course, living in the South, I got a big dose of the Civil War as well. I took away a veneration for Lee but I also took away a sense of the violence of it, too. There's some old Clint Eastwood movie where he gets his leg amputated with a hack saw. I dunno. I've always been fixated on the violence part of it.

I know that race has been the big scar on our history. If you read history, you know the founding fathers were tormented by race as well but they just couldn't bring themselves to do the right thing.

I also had a lot of personal experience with race relations in the South. I remember as a boy working on my grandmother's farm, side by side with black kids. There were also hired men that worked on the farm. My grandmother had a good relationship with them, but there was always the barrier of race. We'd all sit down to eat a lunch during a day working on the farm, but the black men couldn't eat in the house. They ate out in the yard. My grandmother would say they smelled. But heck, even as a kid I knew they didn't have running water in their homes.

And I remember going into a department store in Richmond that had two identical water fountains. The days of "black only" and "white only" signs were gone. But even as a kid, I knew what the fountains were for.

And I remember when Richmond's schools were integrated in the 70s. My parents took me to look at private schools. I guess some of it was that they didn't want me to ride the bus 45 minutes each way to school. But race had to play a role.

I'm sure it all affected me in a 1,000 ways I couldn't even say. But it all came pouring out watching Obama's victory election night. I was listening on NPR, and my reaction was "thank god--he's won!". I went to bed very satisfied.

But it was only in watching the television coverage days later (that I had dvr-ed) that the tears just flowed uncontrollably. The look of joy on people's faces touched me beyond words. If you're 50+ and black and grew up during the civil rights era, I just don't know how could even fathom this having happened. I know Jess Jackson has issues, but the look on his face was truly touching. Andy Young can say some nutty things, but I'd love to hear what he thinks.

I think the thing that has always made me the angriest is when conservatives tell any shit-on group that they should "get over it". No, black people really don't need to get over it. The horror of racism is not ancient history. We've all seen it and lived it. "Getting over it" would be just putting a bandage on an infected wound.

I' m well aware that if the world were not racist (e.g., black kids had access to decent schools), I might not have gotten into William and Mary. If W&M were 20% or black, it seems unlikely I would have made it. And that would have set in motion the loss of a lot of other opportunities.

What I pray has happened is that we have all been cleansed--that festering wound just got a good cleansing. Maybe we can all start to heal now.


---- a final note ----
If you think this is a big deal for America, I think what it will do for the world is even bigger.
When has any industrial power had a black leader of any sort? Darned if I can think of one.
I guess you could count Nelson Mandela, but that's not European or North American.

When the world thinks black leader, they think Idi Amin or Congo's Nkunda. when I was a kid, I used to worry about people going to hell. Heck, now I just worry that the place won't be large enough to hold their ilk.