Setting an Agenda for Change: Meeting the Challenges and Exploring the Opportunities in Higher Education

In order to enhance contacts and collegiality across departmental and programmatic barriers, we instituted "buddy groups." A volunteer committee of faculty and staff sees to it that, each fall, all new faculty members are assigned two "buddies." Untenured Assistant Professors are assigned their buddies for three years; new tenured Associate or Full Professors are assigned their buddies for one year only. One buddy is male, the other female. One buddy comes from the new faculty member's home department, while the other buddy comes from another department within the Faculty of Humanities. Additionally, all new department heads are assigned two buddies for one year (usually current or former heads from other units), and new administrative assistants are assigned one buddy for a year (usually a seasoned administrative assistant from another unit); in some cases, departments have extended this to include secretaries, too. Buddy groups are given two free lunches each semester on the Dean's budget at the Union Club (a comfortable but inexpensive dining room in the Student Union). The purpose of these buddy groups is not formal mentoring; and faculty and staff are not assigned to one another on the basis of mutual scholarly or job-related interests-at least not primarily. Instead, the purpose of these groups is to provide supportive personal contacts for faculty and staff alike. And junior faculty are to be guided successfully through their first three years in order to prepare them for the crucial forth-year pre-tenure review. Buddies are asked to introduce new faculty to Promotion and Tenure expectations, as well as to introduce them to friends, colleagues, and the institution as a whole. Buddies are also expected to help the new person get acquainted with the greater Tucson area. In some instances, we have grouped individuals who are recent parents, so that they might exchange useful information on childcare facilities, pediatricians, etc. In other instances, we have brought together individuals known to be golf enthusiasts or rock climbers. So positive has the response been that, to date, everyone who has completed a one-or three-year buddy assignment has volunteered to buddy again, or, if the individual was herself "buddied," to buddy yet another newcomer. The buddy groups are entirely voluntary, and individuals must indicate their willingness to serve as "buddies." The benefits of the buddy groups have been wide-ranging: collaborative research projects that