Protégé Perception of Faculty Mentoring in India: An Exploratory Study

This study looks at mentoring as a bottom-up approach by exploring who is the ideal mentor and what is the ideal mentoring process from the perspective of the student-protégé. From codes and categories elicited from semi-structured interviews, some significant themes emerged that add to the mentoring literature. A seemingly formal mentoring relationship is seen by some respondents as going beyond this, with an ideal mentor described as a father or even an idol. Some respondents say that a profound relationship could extend over many years beyond the role of professor and student. The ideal mentoring is said to have both formal and informal elements. The construct was seen to be fluid and evolving as per the situation.