Thornton honored with ACE Mentoring Award.

To those to whom much is given, much is expected. That biblical axiom is at the very core of mentoring.

Wanting to repay those who helped them on their career path, many women leaders choose to mentor younger women still in the pipeline. The Fellows program of the American Council on Education is one concrete way.

Since 1965, the ACE Fellows Program has prepared VPs, deans, department chairs, faculty and other emerging leaders to serve in leadership positions at two- and four-year schools. Fellows spend an extended period of time, usually a year, on another campus, working directly with and observing presidents in an experience that can best be described as role modeling.

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And each year Fellows nominate mentors for the ACE Mentoring Award, which is given in recognition of an individual's pivotal role in the Fellows' learning. This year's award went to Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton, president of Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio. In accepting the award at the Council's annual conference held in Los Angeles in February, Thornton quoted African-American educator, Mary McLeod Bethune, who said, "As I give, I get."

The word mentor comes from Homer's The Odyssey. Mentor was the teacher of Odysseus' son, Telemachus. Not solely a teacher, Mentor was "half-god and half-man, half-male and half-female, believable and yet unreachable."

"Mentor was the union of both goal and path, wisdom personified," said Thornton. "This dichotomy, being both infallible and fallible, represents what it means to be complete." Aptly named, the ACE Mentor/Fellow relationship features a dichotomy where both parties become teachers as well as students.