For the interpreting profession, mentoring has traditionally looked much
like an apprenticeship: a master practitioner dispenses knowledge to a
novice in order to mold them into an effective professional. The structure
was mentor-focused and the novice was seen as the primary beneficiary.
This paradigm is highly effective in regions of the country where there is a
critical mass of mentors and of mentees who share similar educational
backgrounds and professional parlance. However, interpreter educators
are often faced with a much different reality. Practitioners seeking
professional growth can, as a group, represent the widest possible
spectrum of professional skills, ethnic/cultural backgrounds, work
experience, and progress in the credentialing process. The Peer Mentoring
Model (PMM) was designed in an effort to address the diverse needs of
such a population. The goal was to support individual skill and career
development, as well as to create a community of learning that could be
utilized for continued professional evolution. This paper will describe the
program template designed to support these goals, as well as outline the
seven guiding principles of the PMM.
