The Affiliate as Mentoring Network: The Lasting Work of the Carolinas WPA.

The national CWPA has made impressive strides to advance mentoring opportunities for its membership, yet, as surveys of the membership have indicated, there are still notable gaps in these opportunities. Drawing on our experiences as founders (Meg and Marsha Lee) and leaders (all four of us) of the Carolinas WPA affiliate (established in 2003), we explore the critical role that regional WPA affiliates have to play in addressing mentoring gaps. We suggest that affiliates can enable broad individual and institutional mentoring work within a geographic region, can empower members by allowing for frequent communication and face-to-face contact, and can provide needed opportunities for multidirectional, non-hierarchical mentoring relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]