The Prototype and Paradox of Mentorship

By Tyler Fisher

Mentor is one of those rare words that is identical across many languages. In English, German, Spanish, French, Welsh, Swedish, Polish, Croatian, among others, it remains invariably mentor. This unusual consistency reflects a common origin: the word derives from a source predating the various languages in which it appears.

Sometimes my students ask why I so frequently bring up etymologies. Aside from the inherent linguistic interest and mnemonic motives for exploring a word’s derivation and development over time, etymologies can unearth forgotten insights afresh. Etymology peels back layers of assumptions, dusts off the disregard that comes with casual usage, and often reveals a deeper conceptual core that gave rise to a word.

Indeed, the etymology of the word etymology itself points to this. The Greek root is étymos, meaning “real, true, authentic, essential” — the quintessence of a thing. Etymology is a quest for the deep, primordial headwaters of a word, a rediscovery of intrinsic truths. Such is the case with mentor.

“Mentor” is the name of a minor yet pivotal character in Homer’s Odyssey. When Odysseus leaves home for the Trojan War, he appoints his old friend Mentor to be steward of his palace and counsellor to his son, Telemachus. Mentor serves in these capacities throughout the ten-year war and Odysseus’s ten-year journey home to Ithaca, and he turns up at crucial junctures in the epic to advise young Telemachus. But all is not as it seems. When Mentor appears in The Odyssey, he is, in fact, the goddess Athena in disguise. The goddess of war and wisdom, disguised as the aged caretaker, counsels Telemachus, inspires him to undertake his own voyage, leads an assault on the predatory suitors, and, in the very last line of the epic, brokers peace among vengeful factions in Ithaca.

From this ancient antecedent of mentor, we can draw invigorating perspectives for our present understanding of mentorship. These perspectives can be expressed as five paradoxes, seeming contradictions held in tension. A veritable package of apparent paradoxes, the most effective mentors are approachable yet transcendent, accidental by design, tending to direct via indirection, sporadic yet steady, and individualized yet expansive.

When I reflect on my undergraduate experience at UCF, I recognize a host of faculty mentors. My appreciation for their mentorship has only grown over the years, especially in light of the competing demands on faculty members’ time. One mentor in particular, Dr. Barry Mauer, exemplifies the qualities I’ve drawn from the Homeric wellspring of the word.

Approachable yet Transcendent

In terms of The Odyssey’s plot, there is no need for Athena to appear in the guise of Mentor. The goddess could have directed the action in any number of other ways, or by using other disguises, as she does repeatedly in the epic. Mentor himself could have accomplished the same plot developments simply by means of persuasion. But this picture of divinity operating under the mask of a friendly old mortal contributes a fundamental insight regarding mentorship: it is power under restraint, lofty knowledge within reach. A mentor meets students at their level while pointing them above and beyond to higher possibilities; a mentor conceals the full scope of his or her own potential while drawing out students’ potential.

In Dr. Mauer, I found an accessible, soft-spoken, self-effacing professor who put my freshman nerves at ease and, at the same time, inspired awe. His demeanor welcomed dialogue, and dialogues with Dr. Mauer prompted me to reimagine everyday assumptions. For instance, he once observed, “When people lose digital data, they go through similar stages of grief, on a lesser scale, as when losing a loved one. What might a memorial or monument to lost data be like?” In a course on propaganda, he assigned a chapter on how to start a cult. He expanded my perspectives by pushing me to reconsider superficial or mundane matters in new, mind-opening ways.

An unobtrusive guide when teaching, Dr. Mauer was likewise willing to let me soar while he remained less conspicuous. When we co-authored my first research paper, he quietly designated me as first author for the publication. In academic settings, this selfless gesture meant an initial toehold for establishing a publication record and securing further opportunities to publish. To borrow a well-known medieval phrase, scholars today “stand on the shoulders of giants,” but mentors are remarkably unobtrusive giants.

Accidental by Design

Dr. Mauer’s mentorship seemed to develop organically. In my view at the time, it began fortuitously: I clicked with a professor, took additional courses with him, and seized his offer to let me collaborate on his research projects. Encounters with Mentor must have seemed similarly serendipitous in The Odyssey. Behind the scenes, however, the council of the gods planned Athena’s interventions among the mortals. It was not entirely by chance that I met my mentor in an Honors Composition course, nor that I had him again for Honors Composition II, both of which were themed courses with limited enrollment, designed to stimulate deeper engagement with the subject matter and closer interaction with the instructor. My happy accident was, in fact, undergirded by the Burnett Honors College’s blueprint.

In a similar way, my professor for Latin American literature, Dr. Alberto Villanueva, happened to become my mentor because an Honors Undergraduate Thesis provided an intentional, optimal venue for that relationship to develop.

Directing via Indirection

Athena-as-Mentor guides Telemachus with questions, exhorting him with indirect analogies and suggestive reminders. The most effective mentoring, I have found, employs techniques of indirection. Dr. Mauer never told me what research questions to ask but rather suggested tasks from which questions would emerge. Early on, he asked me to draft a taxonomy of oral storytelling. From that thought-provoking task, I formulated my first viable question for research: Are there discernible natural differences in the way people recount stories of personal experiences at the location where the events took place as opposed to off-location? My mentor made the question my own, and the possible answers were wonderfully open, mine to discover.

Whereas direct advice can close down conversation, oblique direction can multiply avenues of exploration and provide students a sense of ownership of their learning.

Sporadic yet Steady

Like Athena’s occasional appearances in The Odyssey, effective mentors are a reliable presence that dips in and out. They are available as needed, not overbearing; they may guide by example at some remove. My mentors are now my colleagues at UCF. I might not see them for months at a time, but their enduring influence continues to shape my ideas, and I know that I can turn to them for collaborative inquiry and seasoned perspectives.

Individualized yet Expansive

Athena-as-Mentor spurs Telemachus to set sail in search of his father — an undertaking that naturally involves a full crew on a collective quest. Mentoring a student is an intensely individualized manner of teaching, but its repercussions ripple far outward from that individual impact. At a university the size of UCF, the 1:1 ratio of mentorship may seem counter-intuitive, unsustainable if attainable, yet the true scale of a mentor’s enriching legacy is not always quantifiable. A mentor cultivates one student’s mind, which in turn impacts a more numerous crew, peers, entire cohorts, raising the bar for class discussions and co-curricular endeavors far afield.

For students who are ready and willing to make the most of it, The Burnett Honors College makes a vast university more navigable. Faculty mentors are key for making the university experience more personable.

Readers might have already guessed that the name “Mentor” itself has a deeper past. Even long before Homer sang The Odyssey, the Indo-European verbal root men meant “to think” or “to contemplate” (cf. the Sanskrit cognate, mantar, “thinker”). Mentoring is active thinking. It is this lively, collaborative thinking that I strive to exemplify for my own students in the Burnett Honors College as they launch their own odyssey of lifelong learning.