Staff Mentoring Program Creates
Atmosphere of Camaraderie

When Sharron Kinnaird reflects on her first few days working at Rice, she says she was lucky to have someone like Nancy Letness in her life.

Kinnaird, building coordinator and staff assistant at the George R. Brown School of Engineering, says Letness, assistant to the dean of the school, helped her adjust to her new home at Rice, showing her the ins and outs of the university. So when Kinnaird was approached to join the Staff Mentoring Program, created four years ago, she knew being able to help other new employees was essential to making Rice an enjoyable place to work.

“ Even though Nancy wasn’t officially a mentor through the program, that’s the role she filled,” Kinnaird says. “I thought if I could do that for someone and help them like Nancy helped me, I would feel really good about that.”

The Staff Mentoring Program is designed to provide Rice employees with a network of peers who can answer procedural questions or simply lend an ear to someone having a hectic day. New employees, for example, don’t always know what services are available or which offices to turn to for information, or there may be times when they have questions but are too embarrassed or intimidated to ask. Having a mentor who is familiar with the university gives the employee a comfortable solution.

“ We don’t want our new employees to reinvent the wheel,” says Ellen Butler, chair of the Staff Mentoring subcommittee and executive assistant to the Faculty Council and to Scientia. “Most information is somewhere in some document here at Rice, but how much easier is it to call another staff member?”

The program is open to any person on staff who could use some help or who would like to be a mentor. According to Butler, there are no official requirements to become a mentor. “Staff members don’t realize how much they’ve already acquired,” she says. “The thing about mentoring is that you don’t need to know everything. You’re going to have a network of people whom you can contact to provide answers.” The program’s success is sparking interest from other universities around the country. The subcommittee has received inquiries from universities such as Johns Hopkins, Pepperdine, the University of Arizona, and the University of Memphis about how the program works.

“ The main purpose of the mentoring program is to provide a friendly face,” Kinnaird says. “I think at Rice, there is a real feeling of camaraderie. It’s a rather close-knit group, and it’s genuine.” And, according to Butler, the program also has the added benefit of giving employees ways to make new friends.

An important element of the program is its annual luncheon, where Butler receives feedback about the positive impact the program has had on the Rice campus. “People tell me when they come to these luncheons or team meetings that they worked in other organizations, and they had so many friends there,” she says. “When they came to Rice, they felt completely lost. They didn’t know anyone, and, of course, Rice gives the impression of being so smart, so they felt rather intimidated. Then they joined the mentoring program, and they made so many friends so quickly.”

Butler got a chance to experience firsthand the strength of the bonds created among staff members who are a part of the program when Tropical Storm Allison ravaged Houston in 2001. The building Butler lived in was condemned, leaving her with little time to gather her remaining belongings and move out. “I get this knock on the door,” she says, “and these mentors come in and they start moving all my things, taking me to lunch, providing meals, giving me gifts of money—just endless encouragement. So instead of feeling sad about the flood, I have beautiful memories from it.”

For more information about the Staff Mentoring Program, contact Butler at 713-348-5630 or butler@rice.edu. Additional information can be found at the website www.ruf.rice.edu/~stafadv/mentor_program/.

—Greg Okuhara