Ithaca College

Cory Young, Assistant Professor of Communication Management and Design in the Department of Strategic Communication, and Amy Becker-George, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Strategic Communication and Program & Sales Manager CNYAHEC, co-presented a paper on mentoring. 

The paper entitled, “How bridges can lead to barriers which can lead to change, translating, seeing, and mastering connections, which can lead to . . .,”  was delivered November 13, 2010, at the National Communication Association annual convention in San Francisco. Young  and Becker-George collaborated with Shelby Clark-Shevalier, Manager of Student Services, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University, and Susan McDaniel, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University.

The paper was based on Janice Hocker Rushing’s (2004) book Erotic Mentoring: Women’s Transformation in the University and the article “Disciplining the Feminine” (Blair, Brown, & Baxter, 1994). Both of these texts explore the barriers, bridges, and chilly climate that women face as they are mentored through the tenure process in academia and reveal archetypes that women tend to fall into. Collectively, Young, Becker-George, Clark-Shevalier, and Daniel explained in detail their mentoring experiences and archetypes—as a change agent, translator, master of connection, and seer/visionary—and how these archetypes create both bridges and barriers.