In the most recent episode of NetVUE’s podcast Callings, hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton interview Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, a leading voice on mentoring and coaching in higher education. Maria is the assistant vice provost for faculty advancement at Duke University, where she focuses on helping faculty flourish as researchers, educators, mentors, and leaders. In this role, she offers group coaching programs along with 1:1 coaching to faculty at critical transition points of their careers. She is also the author of How to Mentor Anyone in Academia, published recently by Princeton University Press, which offers methods and approaches to understand the mentor role. No stranger to undergraduate education, Maria is a former Lilly Fellow and holds a PhD in English; she taught literature for a decade at a small liberal arts college before pivoting to her work as an administrator.
In her conversation with Erin and John, Maria articulates the differences between mentoring, teaching, and coaching, and the ways all of these different roles coalesce in our work with students. For Maria, mentoring helps us value growth in a relationship as we bring our “whole selves” to the role, and she advises undergraduate students especially to “never underestimate the transformative power of professional and personal relationships.” This growth is also central to her understanding of vocation, and she emphasizes that we need to embrace revision and change as necessary in our career paths and vocational arcs. Vocation, she observes, ““involves a lot of revision as you move through life. It’s not just one story that’s written from day one and it’s just handed to you … It’s really critical for you to be able to at least co-write your story.” Mentors can help mentees realize their potential, asking important questions that illuminate motivations, values, and goals. Most importantly, they can serves as beacons of hope. “Our students are our future,” she argues, “and I think for them to reach their full potential and to flourish, there needs to be hope.”
Click hereto listen to the episode featuring Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, “Mentoring for Vocation.”
Geoffrey W. Bateman is the editor of Vocation Matters.