Student Success: A Literature Review of Faculty to Student Mentoring

This review summarizes the literature on university faculty to student mentoring programs. There has been a proliferation of mentoring programs because of the perceived benefit to student persistence and retention. While mentoring programs have become common, the research on these programs has not kept pace. Shortcomings identified thirty years ago such as lack of theoretical guidance, lack of operational definition of mentoring, and poor design continue to plague mentoring research. Recommendations to address these shortcomings and improve internal and external validity are examined. As universities continue to have increasingly constrained resources, and pressure to demonstrate strategies to help students be successful, evidence-based research will be increasingly desired. If shortcomings in mentoring research can be addressed, mentoring programs hold the potential to be part of a university’s strategic plan to help students be successful.