Call for Applications – Convivencia: A Symposium on Mentoring
The Faculty of Color Working Group (FOCWG) invites applications for participation in “Convivencia: A Symposium on Mentoring,” to take place March 14-15, 2025 at Wellesley College. The gathering will bring together a small group of faculty of color, at all ranks, who are invested in learning about mentoring as a supportive practice and competency of leadership excellence.
The convivencia, a bringing together of relations, will engage all participants in an exploration of how self, community, and future can be envisioned in collaboration. The work of the convivencia will feature workshops by scholar-leaders with unique perspectives on shaping the support environment for BIPOC faculty. The convivencia will rely on the strength and expertise of all attendees and feature four scholar-leaders: Dr. Lorgia Garcia Peña, author of Community as Rebellion; Dr. Beronda Montgomery, author of Lessons from Plants; Dr. Menah Pratt, author of Blackwildgirl; and Dr. Nelia Viveiros, editor of Incivility and Higher Education: The Costs of Bad Behaviour. These scholar-leaders will enter into conversation with the attending network of mentors and mentees.
We invite interested faculty to apply for participation in the gathering. The FOCWG is committed to ensuring that a strong commitment to developing mentoring and leadership skills is a common goal for all in attendance. Accepted participants will be awarded an honorarium of $450 to help defray travel costs. Participants must commit to engaged attendance on both days of the convivencia.
The goal of the convivencia is to reinvigorate the network, bring new leading voices into conversation, and workshop the mechanisms for network growth and development. As the work of the FOCWG evolves beyond its original Mellon Foundation grant, the convivencia will help seed the foundation for future growth at its next institutional home.
The original FOCWG Mellon Mentors Program–which operated from 2020-2023–worked to partner early-career BIPOC faculty with trained senior mentors to create enduring professional relationships that would provide guidance, resources, and support to early career scholars as they cement their foothold in academia. The FOCWG Mellon Mentors Program created mentoring cohorts that offered multiple models of mentoring and expanded the network of support for program participants. Program participants worked with FOCWG Mellon Mentors—successful faculty committed to the support and advancement of BIPOC colleagues and who participated in the FOCWG Mentor Training Program.
To apply, please fill out the application by October 1, 2024.