A website analysis of mentoring programs for Latina faculty at the 25 top-ranked national universities

Abstract

The authors focused their investigation on Latino faculty, who represent the largest minority group in the United States. They point out that the numbers of faculty continue to be marginal as compared to White males and females. They hypothesized that the invisibility of mentoring programs from universities’ Websites reflect the perfunctory importance these institutions give to ensuring that Latinas are provided with ethno-cultural appropriate mentoring aimed at their acclimatization to institutions, which does not mean that they must leave behind their ethnic and linguistic identities. The authors bring strong insights regarding the status of minority faculty and the need to have mentoring programs to support them, as well as the importance to publish mentoring policies and guidelines in their Websites as a reflection of the importance to the success of all faculty, and more specifically to Latino/a faculty.