EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

250 Equality Guide
women. The training tackled issues concerning gender-specific characteristics and
thresholds. This information was important for creating support for the mentors’ engagement
towards female academics in order not to get into a polemic concerning
positive discrimination.
As the mentors were selected by the steering committee on the basis of their qualities,
the mentors were considered to have the skills needed to be good mentors. The evaluations
did not question this, but it is important to pay attention to the skills needed to
be a good mentor.
3.5. Implementation and continuous support
After the training, the mentees were asked to contact their mentors as soon as possible.
Before that, the mentor and mentee had already had the introductory meeting. This
conversation was aimed at confirming a mutual commitment to work as a duo and at
laying the foundation for ‘rapport’.
After the training they had their first meeting in which they were told to discuss the
result of the training (their personal development plan) and to sign a contract. This
contract underlined the formal aspect of the professional relationship, the development
aim of the mentee and the ethical code. After this first assignment, the content of the
mentoring relationship was not monitored any further. However, the mentors and
mentees did get information about mentoring and conversation techniques.
Mentoring schemes tell us that mentors and mentees do not need micro-managing.
The relationship thrives on informality. However, they do need support and back-up. It
is important they have someone who they can refer queries to ! a scheme coordinator
who keeps an eye on each pair. The project coordinator, who could always be contacted
for information and questions, asked the mentees to send a summary of the
meetings. In practice, the mentees seemed to forget to send in summaries of the conversations
with their mentor. An e-mail from the coordinator to remind them was however
also an opportunity to keep in touch with the mentees and to get spontaneous
reactions about the mentoring programme.
Networking
During the training, the mentees already mentioned they very much valued the networking
part and they asked for opportunities to meet again to share experiences. On
the other hand, the mentoring relationship is all about personal reflection and is strictly
confidential. So it was a challenge to meet again with mentors and mentees, without
talking about the content of the personal meetings. A meeting was planned in the
scope of the formal conclusion of the mentoring scheme. (see CASE STUDY)