Hello everyone,
The recent announcement that the MAA will be organizing mentoring at the IMC in Leeds next month[1] got me thinking a bit about mentoring generally, and potential DM mentoring specifically. The Association for Computers in the Humanities (ACH) has sponsored a mentoring program at the Digital Humanities series of conferences (formerly the ACH/ALLC joint conference) for several years now and it's always been successful. In addition to one-on-one mentoring (organizers get volunteers on both sides and pair them up based on shared interest) there is also a networking event, specifically for mentors and mentees but open to anyone who is interested. I've participated in this program a few times as a mentor and it's a great experience.
So what about starting a DM mentor program? Are there younger scholars and students who feel they might benefit from a one-on-one relationship with someone who has been doing digital work in medieval studies for a while? How about more experienced scholars willing to donate their time to mentoring?
Because there is not really one "Digital Medieval" event that everyone attends, I would rather not attach a mentoring program to a specific event. Instead a program would rely on the initiative of individuals. I would be very happy to coordinate mentor/mentee matching, but following an initial introduction it would be up to the pairs to correspond as they are most comfortable (email, phone, Skype, in-person meetings if they are fortunate enough to be geographically close).
I'll start by gauging interest. Please write back to the list, or to me directly if you are shy (dot.porter@gmail.com). If there is one willing mentor and one person needing a mentor I'll match you up, but given the range of interests in the community it would be better to have a larger pool to match from.
Thanks. I think this could be a really fun and valuable initiative.
Dot
[1] In case you missed the announcement, there is still an opportunity to sign up (until June 25). It looks like the mentors and mentees are both graduate students: http://medievalacademygsc.org/gradstudents/form.html