Mentoring

The Law School is dedicated to the mentoring of junior faculty. The Dean’s Office assigns an experienced faculty member to serve as a scholarship and teaching mentor to each junior faculty member. The faculty mentors are encouraged to meet regularly with those whom they mentor, as well as to be accessible on ongoing basis.

Junior faculty have many opportunities to hone their working papers in a supportive environment. A junior faculty only workshop meets periodically over lunch. The Law School also encourages junior faculty to present work to small groups of faculty as part of a “Salon” program, as well as to the faculty as a whole as part of the internal workshop series. The Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs serve as resources for all faculty, but especially junior and other new faculty, with respect to both research and teaching.

Mentors can attend classes, and also give advice on research, read comment on drafts, and answer questions about anything that may come up in the course of acclimating to a new work environment.  Moreover, faculty who are not formally designated mentors may and very often do a great deal of both teaching and research mentoring.

In addition, the Assistant Dean of  Law and Technology Initiatives as well as the Library and IT departments provide support for faculty with respect to the Northwestern’s Canvas platform and pedagogical and research technologies and databases.

The Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, located on the Evanston campus, is also a useful resource for faculty. The center offers several workshops and other services available to the Law faculty.