Mutual Mentoring Grant Proposal Guidelines

Mutual Mentoring Grant Proposal Guidelines

The Office of Faculty Development (OFD) Mutual Mentoring Grant program supports UMass Amherst faculty & librarians at any career stage who seek to develop robust professional networks with mentoring partners within and/or outside the UMass Amherst campus over the course of one year. 

To apply : Read carefully through the proposal guidelines below. The online application form will ask you to write and upload a short narrative (2000 words, in response to 5-6 questions provided in the form) and to fill out and upload an excel template with your budget items. Instructions for the narrative and budget can be found in the online application. Applications for 2024-25 are now closed.


Information Session Recording 


Why Mutual Mentoring?

Mutual mentoring departs from traditional top-down, one-on-one, senior-to-junior mentorship by:

  • encouraging the cultivation of non-hierarchical, collaborative networks of mentors who exchange knowledge and experience in specific areas, such as research, teaching, tenure, or work-life balance
  • assuring that each “node” or person in the network provides specific areas of knowledge and experience; and  
  • forming network relationships to benefit both the person traditionally known as the “protégé” as well as the person traditionally known as the “mentor.”

Mentoring partners may choose to meet one on one, as a group, in subgroups, in person or remotely, or in a combination of these suggested formats.  

Mutual mentoring has been proven to support faculty by helping them to develop their professional identities, promoting their well-being and job satisfaction, and improving productivity. Studies consistently find that mutual mentoring relationships lead to increased research output, more effective teaching, more dynamic networks, and improved tenure and promotion prospects. It nurtures vital social connections with colleagues who can provide advice, encouragement, and feedback over the course of a faculty member’s professional life.


Micro Grants & Team Grants

The Office of Faculty Development offers two types of mutual mentoring grants:

  1. Micro grants of up to $1500 are offered to individual UMass Amherst faculty/librarians to conduct a mutual mentoring project. Micro-grants can involve up to two additional people who are within or outside of UMass Amherst. 

  1. Team grants of up to $6000 are offered to teams of four UMass Amherst faculty/librarians to conduct a mutual mentoring project. Team grant projects can involve additional team members who are within or outside of UMass Amherst.


Who is eligible?

  • Full-time tenure track faculty
  • Full-time non-tenure track faculty and librarians on continuing track appointments

Please note for team grants: If your team is more than four people, at least four must meet the above eligibility criteria.    


Evaluation Criteria

1) Quality of the Mentorship Project

  • Proposal responds to a compelling mentorship need that differs from mentoring activities normally supported or provided by a department, school/college, or program. 
  • Proposal outcomes are detailed and clearly stated and uses the Mutual Mentoring model.
  • Clear alignment between intended outcomes, proposed activities, and mentoring network.

 2) Feasibility

  • Proposal activities are well-planned and can realistically be accomplished in the grant period.
  • Budget is reasonable and requests are clearly justified.  

3) Impact

  • Proposal describes how the project will affect the faculty member’s professional goals, and rationale for this request to the Mutual Mentoring Program at this time.  
  • Impact on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice
  • Sustainability of the mentoring impact over time

Award Information

  • Applicants will be notified in late April of the status of their proposals.  
  • Upon conclusion of the grant year, awardees agree to provide a 500-word summary of their activities, and a final budget of grant expenses.  
  • We may request your team to present their project to the campus more broadly at an OFD event.
  • Director of Faculty Development, Leyla Keough-Hameed will support awardees’ mentoring activities through an initial “launch” meeting and a brief check-in half way through the year. Leyla is also available to answer questions throughout the year, as needed.

Suggestions for Mentoring Themes

There are numerous challenges to professional success and well-being that can be used to generate ideas for mentoring groups; below we have listed some of these. Proposals could include one or more of these themes or they may fall outside them entirely. Proposals do not have to include these themes to be considered or awarded.

1) Getting to Know the Institution: Understanding the academic culture of departments, schools/colleagues, and the institution; identifying resources to support research and teaching; and creating a trusted network of junior and senior colleagues.

2) Understanding Promotion: Better understanding of the tenure and promotion processes for all ranks (promotion to associate or full professor ranks, to senior lecturer or senior lecturer II, and librarian promotions etc.)—learning more about the criteria for evaluating research and teaching performance, finding support in developing the promotion dossier, soliciting feedback on the quality and quantity of work through the annual faculty review.

3) Developing a Support Network: Forging career-enhancing relationships with faculty (at UMass or outside the institution) who share similar interests, challenges, and/or opportunities. Networks designed to support underrepresented faculty, mid-career faculty, and faculty interested in future leadership roles.

4) Excelling at Research: Developing a research/writing plan, identifying sources of internal and external funding, soliciting feedback on manuscripts and grant proposals, setting up and running a successful laboratory, or identifying outside scholars who could be external reviewers.

5) Excelling at Teaching: Finding support for teaching, such as developing new courses, pedagogical methods, technologies, interdisciplinary curricula, or supporting the learning of all students.

6) Establishing Work-LIfe Strategies: Prioritizing and/or balancing teaching, research, and service; establishing short-term and long-term goals; finding a time management system that works for you; attending to quality-of-life issues such as dual careers, childcare, and affordable housing.

7) Building Interdisciplinary Teams: Reaching out to faculty across campus with similar scholarly interests who are in different fields; getting together to exchange ideas; for existing interdisciplinary teams, sharing ideas on finding funding and team collaboration; connecting with expertise on campus or off to help improve your collaboration.

8) Building belonging and connection. Building relationships – whether they be within identity group(s), with those who share a career stage or role, or between those within a particular unit (a department, a discipline, a college); bringing together individuals across difference(s) to promote communication and understanding and to bridge social divides.

9) Engaging the public: Co-learning and sharing best practices to disseminate scholarship to the public, conduct public outreach, and/or engage communities with scholarly work. Gathering to learn a new method (participatory research; community engaged research); connecting with scholars who excel at engaging the public.

10) ADVANCE Program-related: Mentoring that promotes access to resources, recognition of contributions, and supportive relationships that are essential for equitable collaborations, with a particular focus on groups supporting intersectional gender equity.


Examples of mentoring projects

  • Off-campus meetings to visit a mentoring partner to learn or discuss a new research area or teaching method.  
  • Remote consulting/coaching on a particular professional development area.   
  • Travel expenses to co-present with a mentoring partner(s), and/or meet new or existing mentoring partner(s) at a professional conference.  
  • Modest honoraria to bring a mentoring partner to UMass Amherst for in-person mentoring and/or a public event, such as a departmental workshop or talk.  
  • Editing services from a writing coach or an editor to proofread, fine tune, or edit a scholarly manuscript for submission.  
  • Mentoring for research support such as methodology consultation.

Feel free to email Leyla Keough-Hameed, Director of Faculty Development (ljkeough@umass.edufor examples of team and micro grants. 


Questions? Contact Leyla Keough-Hameed, Director of Faculty Development: ljkeough@umass.edu