Sponsorship and Academic Career Success

Inquiry about careers has been more than disinterested since some populations who have been underrepresented in colleges and universities are raising issues about how faculty careers get launched. Cole and Cole [9] argue that science is universalistic, rewarding creativity and competence wherever it appears. Merit is the universal criterion. However, a number of studies indicate that while merit is part of the picture, social selection on any number of ascriptive variables plays a role in selection for initiation into a profession. In the literature, the process of this initiation is often termed "sponsorship." Hennig [12] and Kanter [13] refer to this process of corporate management as "grooming." Granovetter [ 11] describes the process of sponsorship by studying career contacts in obtaining a position. His theory correlates professional network contacts, that is, the number of "weak-ties" to career success. Crane [10] singles out training in research by eminent sponsors as an important factor in the productivity of scientists. Reskin [ 19] has recently demonstrated in great detail the importance of sponsorship in the career of six cohorts of chemists over the first ten years of their career. Both the sponsors' productivity and collaboration with the protegee affected the later productivity of the graduate chem-