Mentorship and Relationality

To be a good relative, as defined by Dakota scholar Ella Cara Deloria (1889–1971), means to follow cultural protocols of kinship in the shaping of relationships. In this article, the author utilizes Deloria’s employment of “being a good relative” within a Lakota/Dakota understanding and Indigenous studies’ articulations of relationality to discuss mentorship. Utilizing the Indigenous studies’ methodology of self-reflexivity, the author provides an analysis of mentorship experiences within different university settings.

Mentoring at the Boundary: Interdisciplinarity and the International Student of Color in Communication

In this paper, I will discuss mentoring within the discipline of Communication by centering international scholars, who are translated as people of color in the U.S. and are engaged with questions drawn from the context of their nations of origin. How do you enable such a scholar to traverse boundaries – national and disciplinary with the selfassurance that ostensibly comes from feeling at home? Briefly discussing the history of the institutionalization of Communication as an academic discipline, I ask what it means to mentor scholars of color engaged with transnational work within a space that centers the nation-state as a bounded territory, in general and the U.S. in particular. Drawing on transnational and women of color feminist theorization and praxis, I also draw out the productive collaborations and relationships forged when mentoring reveals the processes through which the discipline reiterates its boundaries.

Enshrining Terror for the Nation: Affect and Nationalism at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum (9/11 MM) employs affective rhetoric to enshrine the trauma of September 11 in support of U.S. nationalism. Applying Brian Massumi's understanding of affect as intensity, I examine how the site's rhetoric amplifies affect. The memorial pools and many signifiers of destruction magnify affective intensity through scale and repetition. The 9/11 MM continues its affective onslaught through an excessive number of shocking visuals and narrative details in its historical exhibition. The site’s affective intensity culminates in a non-linear and non-narrative memorial space of seemingly infinite individualized mourning. The article discusses the site's political and social impact by considering Nigel Thrift's idea of affect in the built environment as imbedded thought and Georg Böhme's theory of atmosphere, understood as the reciprocal relationship between affective urban space and its impact on people.

Prying the Doors Open: Women of Color Mentoring in the Field of Communication

For the past few decades mentoring has moved from being a buzzword in a few select programs into a major institutional goal. From large corporations to small universities, leaders recognize the importance of those with more experience guiding junior employees and students. Colleges and universities have taken the lead nationwide in mentoring efforts, with many having exemplary peer mentoring programs for undergraduates, and some institutions deploying mentoring to support faculty and students. The discipline of Communication has also begun to place more emphasis on mentoring. Yet, some populations, specifically women of color and other minoritized people, do not always have access to networks or programs and are left on their own to navigate institutions and processes. That few women of color faculty inhabit academic spaces in Communication departments, as in other departments across campuses, creates additional challenges for students and faculty, who often lack mentors and yet carry the additional burden of mentoring. This introduction to the special forum in CCC brings sets up the critical insights on mentoring our senior and emerging contributors offer.

Assessing Programmatic Mentoring: Requiem for Carmen

This essay is not about getting good mentoring. Rather, it is about the ways in which institutions must invest in providing resources for professional success and wellness, with a particular understanding of the needs of women of color. To ensure faculty retention and success, institutions must not only provide resources but also engage in exacting assessment practices to ensure programmatic efficacy.