Supporting New Faculty at Community Colleges Through Mentoring Circles

ABSTRACT Although community colleges work to support faculty at all stages, it is especially important for colleges to support new faculty, who may be both new to the institution and new to teaching. Many colleges rely on dyad mentoring models where new faculty mentees are assigned one mentor, often a senior faculty member in the department. There are benefits associated with dyad mentoring models, but mentoring models that utilize a multiple mentorship approach can provide additional support. One especially promising model is the mentoring circle, where new faculty members engage with other new faculty members as well as with several other mentors. New faculty benefit from hearing about the teaching challenges encountered by colleagues and the collective problem‐solving that takes place in mentoring circles. Discovering varied perspectives can help new faculty reflect on how they can best support student learning in their classrooms. We describe the mentoring circle model, provide an example of how a large, suburban community college implemented this model, and share lessons learned from using this approach during the past 10 years. In addition, recommendations for researchers and practitioners are shared.