Mentor/Mentee Opportunities
Early Career Faculty Mentorship Pilot Program
The CELA Board of Directors is introducing the CELA Early Career Faculty Mentorship Pilot Program, a one-year initiative launching this fall to build more intentional, structured mentoring support across our membership.
We know from conversations with faculty at all career stages and from the broader research on academic mentoring that good mentoring shapes almost everything that matters in a faculty career: how confidently you navigate promotion and tenure, how sustainably you build a research or design agenda, and whether you feel genuinely supported rather than isolated in your work. We also know that in a discipline as small as ours, with many programs staffed by just a handful of full-time faculty, that kind of support doesn’t always exist close to home, particularly for faculty at smaller or less-resourced programs and for faculty from historically underrepresented backgrounds. This pilot is our first structured effort to close that gap.
What the program offers:
- A one-year, cross-institutional pairing of 10–12 early-career, pre-tenure faculty with 10–12 mid-career and senior faculty mentors.
- Monthly one-on-one mentoring conversations with your matched mentor, covering career development, tenure preparation, research and publication strategy, teaching and studio practice, and professional balance.
- Four quarterly cohort sessions across the year, including two centrally hosted sessions on candidate/research statement writing and dossier assembly, led by an invited facilitator.
- A dedicated session at the CELA Annual Conference for participants to connect in person and reflect on the year together.
- Access to shared resources, including tenure and promotion dossier preparation materials and recorded session content.
Who this is for:
- Mentees: early-career, pre-tenure landscape architecture faculty. Applications will ask for a current CV, a statement of interest (up to 1,000 words), and a letter of support from your department or program supervisor. Only one applicant per institution will be accepted into the mentee pool.
- Mentors: faculty at associate rank or higher (or equivalent professional standing), with at least three years of full-time faculty experience, willing to commit to the full academic year and the monthly meeting cadence.
Timeline:
- September 8, 2026: Call for applications opens
- September 30, 2026: Applications due
- October 1–12, 2026: Participant selection and matching
- Week of October 19, 2026: Program launch and kickoff session
If you’re early in your career, we highly recommend applying; mentorship is most effective when used actively. If you’re more advanced and able to mentor, please think about volunteering; the success of this program relies entirely on experienced faculty willing to participate.
If you are interested in participating in this program, please use the links below:
Mentee Application Link
Mentor Application Link
On behalf of the CELA Board of Directors, thank you for everything you bring to this organization. I’m looking forward to seeing this program take shape with all of you.
Warmly,
CL Bohannon, Ph.D., FASLA
President, CELA