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In the Digital Humanities (DH), career issues arise that are not necessarily relevant in other disciplines and are therefore not covered by traditional mentoring opportunities.
Digital Humanities scholars are often situated both in a discipline and in the Digital Humanities. On the one hand, this opens up career paths outside of the traditional academic fields of work; on the other hand, this interface function poses special challenges to one’s own professional profile. Depending on the individual context, there are specific requirements for consulting services with regard to dealing with digital methods and career opportunities.
This is precisely where the DHd’s mentoring program comes in and aims to support early career scholars both in application-related issues and in the development of individual career strategies. To this end, a two-part program has been developed, consisting of individual formal mentoring on the one hand and low-threshold peer-to-peer mentoring on the other. These formats are also flanked by a supporting program integrated into the DHd Association’s annual conference.
In individual mentoring, each mentor accompanies their mentee for a period of 12 months. The content and goals of the mentoring depend on the individual needs of the mentee and are defined in a goal agreement with the mentor at the beginning of the cooperation.
For peer-to-peer mentoring, the DHd association provides a Mattermost server. This allows mentees to network with each other, share their own experiences and form working groups on various tools or methods.
Im Rahmen der Jahrestagung lernen sich Mentor:innen, Mentees und Ehemalige im Rahmen eines “Meet and Greet” kennen. Mit einem “Ask an Expert”-Format During the annual conference, mentors, mentees and alumni will get to know each other at a „Meet and Greet“. With an „Ask an Expert“ format, newer community members are made aware of the mentoring program and encouraged to actively participate by asking their questions.
The program is particularly aimed at PhD students, but is also open to advanced Master’s students and PostDocs, as well as scholars who do not have an institutional opportunity to participate in appropriate mentoring programs. It is also open to Humanities researchers using digital methods who have not yet been connected to the German-speaking (and international) DH community.
However, we may reject applications when we cannot find a proper match, as this does not usually lead to a beneficial mentoring relationship. This can sometimes happen, for example, when the connection to the DH community is too weak and the mentee’s coaching questions are too vague to make a useful match.
This mentoring program was piloted in 2023-2024. We would be very happy to receive any feedback on how to improve the program
Link to the call for applications for the DHd Early Career Mentoring Program 2024-25: https://digitalhumanities.de/en/2024/04/02/ausschreibung-zum-dhd-early-career-mentoring-programm-2024-25/