Falola and the Power of Mentorship
This is a short note to thank Professor Toyin Falola for honoring me with his presence and support during my recent endowed chair conferment event. I hope that this does not mutate into a hagiography, which I detest. However, what needs to be said needs to be said. Professor Falola is a model mentor. He gives all of himself to his mentees, formal and informal. I am one of his informal mentees. I never formally studied under him, at least not directly. Our first encounter, which he may no longer remember, was sometime in 1999 when he visited the university of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to deliver a lecture. I was a graduate student there at the time. We exchanged brief pleasantries.
Several years later in 2004, Professor Falola sought me out when I moved to Vanderbilt University as an Assistant Professor of African History. He introduced me to Professor Adebayo Oyebade of Tennessee State University, who would then become my connective tissue to the larger academic and social communities that now constitute my support network in Nashville.
Shortly thereafter, Falola offered me a space of publication in a volume he was editing. That book chapter was my first publication after my appointment at Vanderbilt. It was the platform upon which other publications emerged, the professional confidence builder that propelled me forward in my scholarly endeavors.
Several collaborations on publications would follow in subsequent years, but one other gesture of Falola's deserves a special mention. As I struggled with my first year jitters, trying to settle into my teaching routine while initiating a robust research and publications program, Falola, unsolicited, requested to read my dissertation. Several weeks later, he returned the dissertation to me with extensive comments designed to help me revise it for publication. He had painstakingly read the entire manuscript. I am not sure I thanked him properly for his unsolicited investment in my early scholarly enterprise.
What had I done to deserve such attention and favor from this scholarly Iroko, I remember asking myself. I was simultaneously perplexed, flattered, grateful, and humbled by Falola's many mentoring gestures in my direction.
Falola has in effect adopted me, a non-student of his, into his mentorship family. I now had access to his reputational capital, his circle of scholars, the cachet of his name, and other privileges that association with him conferred.
Falola sang my praises to mutual interlocutors. He raved about me in ways that embarrassed me and caused me to fear that I would never be able to live up to the pedestal he was erecting beneath me. He wrote letters of support when I solicited them without grumbling. He offered important career advice, and he called to congratulate me when he heard good news about my career. When I was promoted to full professor in 2015, I got a surprise that I will never forget. Falola had called to congratulate me and to tell me that this was the beginning, not an end. Then several days later, as I was checking my mail, I saw a nice envelope. I opened it to find a congratulatory card, a sweet, accompanying note, and a check for an amount that I will not disclose. I said to myself: who does such things? In our cold, impersonal academic universe, gestures such as this are unheard of. It was not the check; it was the uncommon gesture that it represented.
Professor Falola gives all of himself to those he mentors. He withholds nothing. What's more, he enjoys nurturing and giving platforms for younger scholars to thrive and realize their potentials. This is rare in the academy, a space fraught with the suffocating anxieties of hierarchy, territoriality, and authority.
Mentorship is one of the most important aspects of the reproductive life of scholars. Yet it is neglected and often poorly executed. The reasons are familiar. Mentorship is hard. When you agree to mentor someone, you assume their scholarly anxieties. You become obsessed with their careers and scholarly welfare, often to the detriment of your own.
Mentorship is also unrewarded in material terms. There are very few mentorship awards in academia, certainly not as many as research and teaching awards. Mentorship is one of the unpaid intellectual labors of our profession. Aside from the psychological pleasure of seeing a mentee flourish, there is no reward, no tangible reward for mentoring. Which is why good mentors such as Falola deserve to be celebrated and projected outwards as models worthy of emulation.
The thing that sets Falola apart from other good mentors is that he does not do it merely as a professional duty; he mentors because he enjoys doing so and because he genuinely enjoys pouring himself into the obligations and ethos of the relationship. Nor does he do it for gratitude and praise. I do not do the suck up game, and he knows it, but that has not deterred him from embracing me tighter as a mentee. That is remarkable.
I have gone to this length to underscore the importance of mentorship because I believe that Falola embodies what mentorship is about, and because I want to recommend his example to all of us who find ourselves in academic and intellectual stations from which we can guide and nurture younger aspirants to those positions.
When I called Falola to tell him about my endowed chair event several months ago, he immediately said he would be there. I had been preparing to plead and cajole, but he spared me that effort and disarmed me with his enthusiastic insistence on being present. True to his word, not only was he here for the event, he added color, entertainment, and a welcome paternal flavor to all the events. At the dinner after the reception, he made sure that the attendees didn't just east and drink but that they also celebrated me. I was honored, humbled, inspired, and reenergized. He was the catalyst for a great day of celebration.
I will say this in closing this note of gratitude because it illustrates Falola's model of selfless mentorship. On the morning of the event, I went to his hotel to have breakfast with him. During our conversation, he let it slip that he was in the middle of a diagnostic study at the University of Texas hospital. I was covered in guilt. Had he told me this prior to his arrival, I would have insisted that he stayed behind in Texas to complete the process. He had kept it from me precisely because he wanted to come and celebrate with me; he wanted to come and honor me.
A mentor who will not suspend their involvement in a medical diagnostic procedure to attend your professional event is a true mentor. That is the very essence of the self-denying brand of mentorship that Falola practices. Even now, I feel a little guilt, but the word inspiration is a better description of what I feel. Falola's example inspires me. If I can mimic one quarter of Falola's mentorship template, I will be a highly accomplished and fulfilled academic.
I pray that Falola's example does not go to waste but that through him we can all learn the reproductive and regenerative power of good, selfless mentorship.
Thank you, Professor Falola, for showing us the way.
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