Complete Dissertaton - Final for Print with new editing - Dallas ...

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challenges and opportunities presented by academic life.” 174 They offer these insights
from their research:
Lipschutz (1993) argues that mentoring graduate students goes beyond merely
advising them. In the context of a graduate school, mentorship assumes a respect
for students as sources of ideas and insights (e.g. coauthoring papers) and means
of offering students timely and constructive responses to their work, modeling the
values of the discipline, and demonstrating a concern for their professional
welfare. For Lipschutz (1993), mentoring is a valuing, transforming relationship
in which the mentor is actively invested and aware of the responsibilities he or she
assumes for shaping the mentee’s knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors. 175
Whether it is an individual one-to-one mentoring relationship or an affinity
group, women in academia seek other women for connection to gain wisdom from those
who have gone before them. These connections help to develop relationships in which
women benefit from each other. Carolyn Duff reports that women across the country,
from Florida to Oregon, come together in a variety of places to form giving and learning
communities. She says that women form groups around age and stage, single-parent
issues, advocacy for older parents, lifestyle values, spiritual searches, and career shifts.
Duff makes this statement, “We learn from one another and we give to one another. We
approach life as a whole, knowing the interconnectedness of all our decisions. We seek
one another’s wisdom as we continue composing our lives.” 176
Formal training begins in seminaries for anyone who feels called to Christian
service or wants to expand his or her biblical and theological knowledge and
understanding. Whether a pastor, a Bible study teacher, a youth director, a missionary, a
male or female, everyone needs the input of the older or more experienced to help them
in the on-going formation, preparation, and education for a life of ministry. In Christian
174 Mirka Koro-Ljungberg and Sharon Hayes, “The Relational Selves of Female Graduate
Students During Academic Mentoring: From Dialogue to Transformation,” Mentoring and Tutoring.
University of Florida Press 14, no. 4 (November 2006): 390.
175 Ibid., 390.
176 Duff, Learning From Other Women, 153.