May 6, 2008 8:00 AM

A match made for mentoring

Pairing UCLA employees with campus mentors is like arranging marriages, said Marsha Coutin, coordinator of career services for Campus Human Resources. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Yet for 13 years, Coutin has been remarkably successful in making compatible matches between mentors and mentees for UCLA's Professional Development Program (PDP), the yearlong leadership development program that provides participants in PSS 2-6 classifications with opportunities to enhance professional and management skills.

The importance of mentorship — considered by many participants to be one of its most valuable elements — has only increased with the impending wave of staff and faculty retirements and the subsequent need for succession planning.

"The intent of this program is multifold: to provide employees with experiences to enhance their management skills, and to provide them with greater visibility to the decision-makers on campus," Coutin said.

Mentors — who are usually at the director level and above — have included such administrators as Assistant Vice Chancellor Keith Parker; Associate Vice Chancellors Glyn Davies, Jack Powazek, Sue Abeles and Jim Davis; Vice Chancellor Janina Montero; and Jackie Reynolds, director of campus services for AIS. Most of these senior leaders enthusiastically agree to serve as PDP mentors year after year.

One such mentor is Lubbe Levin, associate vice chancellor for Campus Human Resources, who has spent time with her mentees in a variety of ways, including having lunch together and inviting them to meetings. On occasion, Levin has even asked her mentees to make presentations.

"In my early years in the human resources field, there were several faculty members who were critical as mentors to me in my own development," Levin said. "Without that kind of interest, support and guidance, it would have been harder to navigate through the various career options that present themselves.

"When you're a mentor, you also get the benefit of the mentee's feedback to you, and that two-way partnership can be very valuable to both individuals and can be a career-long relationship, not just one that relates to a particular portion of your career," Levin said.

Shelly Brooks, MSO III in the Department of Social Welfare, was a 2004-05 PDP participant who felt both "honored" and "ecstatic" when she found out that Coutin had paired her with Levin.

"I knew I would learn something from my mentor, but what I did not realize is that Lubbe was as interested in learning from me as I was from her," Brooks said. "Lubbe models and exhibits the very best characteristics that we seek in our leaders. She made herself completely available to me and was totally open in terms of the range of topics I could approach her about."

Recently, UCLA's Administrative Management Group sponsored a panel on mentoring and invited Coutin, Parker and Angela Marciano of Housing and Hospitality Services (H&HS) to speak.

Parker, the head of Government and Community Relations, described his own valuable experiences as a mentee and his desire to repay the debt to his mentors by extending himself to others. A frequent PDP mentor, he continues to keep in touch with former mentees, inviting them to lunch or to the occasional cocktail party for a political event.

"When I think about the people who look to me as a mentor, I hope they're able to say that their relationship with me is important to them — not just this year or next year, but over a period of time," he said.

Marciano, director of organizational planning, performance and development in H&HS, described the successful mentoring program she helped create six years ago for her department. The nine-month program offers classes and workshops designed to groom a qualified pool of applicants for open positions, increase employee satisfaction and improve morale.

"You've got to go into the program knowing that 98%-99% of the individuals you're targeting really want to learn and don't want something for nothing," Marciano said. "They just want an opportunity to do better for themselves."

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