Volume 12 Issue 1/2 SPRING/FALL 2010 Peitho www.cwshrc.org a publication of the coalition of women scholars in the history of rhetoric and composition In this issue: Editor’s Letter Holding Hands and Shaking Hands Intentional Mentoring Mentoring, an Incantation Women in Digital Spaces Roundtable Report A Selection of Secondary Texts Concerning Ancient Women Historical Methodology: Past and “Presentism”? Editor’s Letter Peitho fleeing the seduction of Dear all Leda appearing on an Apulian red I am pleased to present to you the combined Spring/Fall 2010 issues of figure vase, ca. 350-340 B.C.E. Peitho. Much of this combined issue focuses on the topic of the Coalition Wednesday night session at the 2010 C’s. Based on feedback from the 2009 J. Paul Getty Museum Used with permission session in San Francisco, the 2010 Louisville session attempted to examine new ways of mentoring and professional development—the remix, revisit, rethink, revise, renew of the conference’s call for papers. We are pleased to present here a number of the presentations from that Coalition Officers session. Marcy Tucker’s “Holding Hands and Shaking Hands: Learning to Profit from the Professional Mentor-Mentee Relationship” argues for looking President Nancy Meyers (Continued on page 5) University of North Carolina at Greensboro Holding Hands and Shaking Hands: Vice-President Elizabeth Tasker Learning to Profit from the Professional Stephen F. Austin State University Mentor-Mentee Relationship Treasurer Lisa Mastrangelo Marcy Tucker College of St. Elizabeth Secretary Scholars and students of feminist movement understand that we should Jenn Fishman never assume that anything is natural to any particular group; however, those University of Tennessee-Knoxville of us who teach rhetoric and composition, and especially those of us who are Member-at-Large female and who support interactive pedagogies, have long contended with Lynée Lewis Gaillet the assumption that we are (or should be) nurturing. To a significant degree, Georgia State University women in Rhetoric and Composition remain framed in traditional views of Past President women’s roles: bound to motherly expectations for and about our Barbara L’Eplattenier professional roles, despite years of scholarship arguing otherwise. Many of University of Arkansas—LR Page 2 www.cwshrc.org Peitho Volume 12 Issue 1+2 us are still the “sad women in the basement” (Miller feel entirely dependent on their colleagues for 1991) and any number of other descriptors that name assistance and leadership. the devaluing of our professional status. Regardless of our race, class, or professional Much of this is related to the still-prevalent notion ranking, all women need guidance and support. of composition as service-work, where teaching Because we all have very different and particularly involves the labor intensive and time consuming specific needs from one day to the next, we should “tidying up” of student papers (Schell 1992) and utilize several mentors and thereby create our own where love is the dominant trope (Brannon 1993). support systems based on the individual strengths of Even when teachers do not personally display our colleagues. But before we are tempted to leap nurturing characteristics, their interactive pedagogies into a mentoring relationship, we need to examine may still lead their students to see them as the source what it means to mentor and be mentored. I outline of maternal intimacy (Jarratt 1991). My own below six different types of mentors, and while this experience has shown me that this issue is list is far from exhaustive, it helps clarify how the compounded once we leave our doctoral programs— expertise of each differs, yet still complements each where we have the luxury of a shared theoretical other. My hope is that this list will inspire readers to framework—and are dispersed via the job market to imagine other types of mentoring roles, both for campuses at which we may very well be the only ourselves and for those we mentor, and in doing so compositionists in residence. It is indeed a difficult we can better compartmentalize and customize our transition. Add to this the countless other adjustments needs and the best options for meeting them. that the newly-degreed academic faces, and the The Guidebook Mentor process of professionalization can seem It was 1929 when Virginia Woof’s A Room of overwhelming. Aisenberg and Harrington (1988) One’s Own was published. She wrote of being the describe this complicated process of woman’s audacious trespasser at “Oxbridge” who was barred professionalization as transformation, an “intellectual entrance to the library without the accompaniment of and emotional process whereby women acquire a a Fellow or letter of introduction. In many ways, new identity, transcending the limitations of the those Fellows and Scholars are still protecting their identity defined by the old norms” (20). turf, so this mentor can serve as your Fellow to open Transformation is arduous, because as newcomers to doors for you and introduce you to the intricacies of the profession, we undergo much personal change academia. There are policies articulated in the and also simultaneously acquire extensive knowledge Faculty Handbook (however vague or ambiguous), about the workings of our professions. and there are policies de facto. Unarticulated rules We could obviously use some help, and it makes serve as a power mechanism that works especially sense to turn to another female who has experienced well when women remain silent. Breaking a rule transformation herself—what many of us call a could bring condemnation, while deliberately asking mentor. Paula J. Caplan (1995) argues that when we what the rules are could make us appear paranoid are faced with the challenges that academia poses for (Caplan). Women without mentors can be thwarted women, our two most powerful sources of help are an by insiders/gatekeepers who carry the rules and understanding of the system and the support we get regulations in their heads and refuse to share them, from each other. Mentors are particularly important further marginalizing them and impeding their for new faculty or faculty from historically success (Bishop 342). marginalized groups, such as women of color and/or The Guidebook mentor is someone who is willing first-generation college graduates, who are less “at to share accurate information with you. New, junior, home” with the culture of academe and who have few and contingent faculty may lack the experience and or no family members or friends who can relate to the exposure to recognize and understand the many “psychic turmoil” of their minority status in academia nuances present in their department, college, or and of associated class and racial politics (hooks university. When a mentee has had limited 1994). Because these women may lack vital support employment in academia or has had a not-so- systems outside of their work environments, they can wonderful graduate experience, she has no basis of Peitho Volume 12 Issue 1+2 www.cwshrc.org Page 3 comparison of institutional norms between what “the crass masculinist values of power and self- actually is “normal” and what is not. For many interestedness” for females (Brannon 460), this reasons, this mentor should be a senior or advanced mentor helps you escape the alternative of remaining professor or administrator. As such, she is likely to be silent by teaching you how to be recognized and/or someone who may have already established a compensated for the work you do. Her insight into network of other women on- and off-campus and she power-dynamics particular to your campus makes her is privy to the unofficial “histories” that provide an especially helpful resource toward determining precious insight into the climate of a particular which obligations (committees, for example) will campus. This mentor, then, is an especially important most strategically satisfy service requirements and asset to you in that she can refer you to someone who facilitate fruitful networks among colleagues. has information and resources to help you, if she The Task-Master Mentor can’t. She also has the means to introduce you to While the “life of the mind” prospers in unhurried others on campus, in the local community, and in the solitude, we know that the intersections between our larger academic community and disciplines, thus personal and professional lives and the multitude of increasing your visibility and expanding your career roles we play in each represent a far different reality. opportunities. Aside from knowing the rules, the This mentor is skilled in active-focused strategies for Guidebook, especially when tenured, may be willing coping with workloads, deadlines, and the to report wrongdoings or voice a complaint for you if concomitant stress. Because she is action-oriented, your untenured status causes you fear of reprisal, or if she can teach us ways to deal productively with our you suspect your complaint will be dismissed or stress instead of avoiding or denying it. She may ignored. encourage us to manage scheduled short blocks of The Political Advisor Mentor time in which to prioritize the article draft that gets No, this mentor does not (necessarily) help you shoved aside when the day-to-day demands of win a high post, but she does know how to navigate teaching and service intercede. You may also chose the “political” nature of the academic workplace, (as I do) to have this mentor impose specific especially in regard to gender politics. Women deadlines on you and/or monitor your progress; in frequently enter the academic arena with lower this regard, this particular mentor does not expectations toward entitlement than male colleagues necessarily have to be a senior colleague, but may (Carli 1998); we have a more difficult time setting very well be someone else who needs a task-master competitive boundaries (Barash 2006); and we forfeit in you.