Tales of the unexpected: unanticipated benefits of novel mentoring partnerships

Session Resources

Session recording (UHI login required)

Session Outline

Mentoring has established benefits: learning from others; gaining confidence and new ideas; achieving focus to attain goals. There are, however, additional more 'intangible' benefits that we often hear about in feedback from those involved in the University Mentoring Scheme, and which are particularly valuable in the UHI context: networking, increased institutional knowledge, cross partnership collaborations. This session is a chance for current and prospective mentors and mentees to hear from two novel mentoring partnerships with pairings across distance, disciplines and levels.

Presenters

Rosalind Bryce

Rosalind Bryce is an interdisciplinary senior research fellow at the Centre for Mountain Studies, Perth College UHI, with interests that span the natural and social sciences. She has an ecological background and experience working on research projects on integrated land use, conservation management, ecosystem services, tourism and environmental conflicts. Rosalind is interested in designing processes that engage stakeholders, communities and the wider public in decision making related to natural resources. She also teaches on the MSc Sustainable Mountain Development and supervises the work of several PhD students.

Rosalind's mentoring discussions focus on Mandy’s research goals and how these can be managed alongside her teaching responsibilities. Some interesting ideas for research collaborations have emerged from their shared research interests and different disciplinary perspectives.

Mandy Haggith

Mandy Haggith lives in Assynt and teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Inverness College UHI. She is a poet and novelist and her books include four poetry collections, a tree poetry anthology, a non-fiction book about paper and five novels. Since 2011 she has run a tree poetry project, A-B-Tree, inspired by the Gaelic tree alphabet. Her current research projects also include Wild Words in the Woods, funded by Scottish Forestry, involving a poetic inquiry into how people feel about trees in the landscape, and The Liminal Zone, a Carnegie Trust funded exploration of the seashore as a metaphor for the interface between teaching and creative practice.

Ros began mentoring Mandy in June 2020. They have monthly Skype calls to bounce ideas around and discuss grand plans and next steps, in which Mandy gets to moan about setbacks and Ros sympathises and points out opportunities. They're hoping to co-supervise a PhD studentship if funding can be found.

Stephen Gertsen

Stephen Gertsen is a sport & fitness lecturer at Moray College UHI. This is Stephen's first experience mentoring as part of university mentoring scheme, and although the partnership is in the early stages, he is very much enjoying working with his mentee. Stephen is currently part of the Teaching Mentoring Team at Moray College where he helps support lecturers through the TQFE qualification as well as helping newly appointed lecturers settle in. Outwith UHI, Stephen is a freelance mentor for coaches and athletes as part of the Table Tennis England and Table Tennis Scotland mentoring initiatives.

Honor McCutcheon

Honor McCutcheon has been delivering skills for work in hairdressing and make-up for 8 years for Argyll college. Honor has had such fantastic experiences with her learners over the years.  When Honor started her mentoring journey, she wasn't sure what she was looking for. What Honor has found is fantastic communication with a fellow colleague which is developing and inspiring her own self development and learning of new tools.

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