EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

242 Equality Guide
mentoring in its original meaning.
To prepare this, a conceptual note was written that fit in with the project and its aims.
This note described which form of mentoring was to be used and why, as well as the
costs and benefits for the university. The definition, vision and values were also explicitly
mentioned. The conceptual note was used to get support from the management
and key persons within the university. From the beginning, the project was supported
by the UHasselt Vice-Chancellor/Director of SEIN Prof. Mieke Vanhaegendoren. A
formal engagement of the university was also needed. Therefore, an internal steering
committee was created, consisting of the university’s general manager, the quality
coordinator, the Vice-Chancellor and the project coordinator.
The internal steering committee was particularly important in the preparatory phase.
The project concept was approved by the committee, which created a consensus concerning
the aims and procedure. This facilitated the practical realization of the project
because the Personnel Department quickly provided the information that would be
needed to contact the target group of potential mentees in a later phase.
The evaluations of the later participants ! mentors and mentees ! demonstrate that
they did not consider the internal steering committee to be important. However, for the
project coordinator this committee did provide an added value with respect to:
! the internal tuning of the choice of mentoring concept;
! the formal engagement of the university, also for co-financing;
! the commitment of the quality coordinator, Personnel Department and top management
towards mentoring as a development instrument and equal opportunities
in personnel management.
Another advantage of the committee at UHasselt was that they took on an active role
in selecting and contacting the mentors. This was only possible thanks to the relatively
small scale of the organization. The later evaluation showed that this also created a
disadvantage. People were approached personally, which was easy. However, after the
pilot project, there was only a limited number of candidates who agreed to act as mentors
and no strategies were developed in order to convince less motivated and less
‘obvious’ mentors. This made the project coordinator aware of the fact that the orientation
on mentoring and creating support needs to be a constant point of attention.
It is also vital to keep working on visibility. This happened in various ways: there was
continuous communication between the mentors and mentees involved in the project,
posters were placed throughout the university and there was project information on the
website. Furthermore, an article was published in the university bulletin and another
one in Delta 255 , a journal for Secondary Education in Flanders.
255 Nielandt, Bie & Olijve, A. (2007). ‘Mentoren helpen vrouwen hogerop’. In: Delta, maart 2007, p. 38-41.