Scholars have demonstrated that one of the most important factors that graduate students use to ascertain the quality of their educational experience is their relationship with faculty. Research on faculty-graduate student mentoring relationships has provided valuable insights about effective practices that foster the success of graduate students. While these relationships are beneficial to both the mentor and mentee, the literature on faculty-student mentoring relationships primarily has focused either on mentoring relationships with undergraduate students or on specific types of interactions between graduate students and faculty. This article adds to the existing literature by exploring faculty mentors' perceived roles and responsibilities in their mentoring relationships with their graduate students. Data were drawn from interviews with 15 underrepresented faculty members from one research university. Findings reveal that faculty-graduate student relationships can be described by three broad descriptors that characterize participants' roles and responsibilities-faculty members as Allies, Ambassadors, and Master-Teachers.

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As the labor market continues to demand more workers with postsecondary credentials, for-profit colleges and universities offer the training, degrees, and credentials that students seek to remain viable in an increasingly competitive job market. This study seeks to provide a new perspective on for-profit institutions by focusing on the roles and responsibilities of their most visible employees—faculty members. The author uses a cultural framework to explore the context in which faculty work takes place and also explores how the intersection between profit generation and educational quality affects faculty work both inside and outside of the classroom.

Academic freedom remains a central tenet of our nation's colleges and universities. However, recent incidents have spawned debates regarding the merits of academic freedom and the mechanism that protects it, tenure. By way of two contrasting examples, the authors consider how two types of higher education institutions-private for-profit universities and nonprofit public institutions-situate themselves in the public dialogue when controversies arise. The authors argue that academic freedom and tenure permit postsecondary institutions to act as vehicles for public engagement, whereas its absence only serves to curtail thoughtful discussions of complex and controversial issues.