Is It Athene, Minerva, or Estelle Disguised as Mentor? Or, Mentoring the Next Generation: Jorgensen as mentor qua Mentor

The work of a mentor takes many forms. There is the formal mentoring of a student or a colleague done by advisors and professors. From Homer’s Odyssey, however, comes another image in the character of “Mentor,” the trusted friend of Odysseus who was charged with the care of Odysseus’s young son, Telemachus. Although Mentor was male, there are two instances in literature wherein females—Pallus Athene and Minerva— took the form of Mentor and were successful where “Mentor” had failed. The feminine image of “Mentor in disguise” will be explored in this chapter to illustrate Jorgensen’s approach to mentoring a generation of students, writers, scholars, professors and philosophers in both formal and informal settings. The mentoring by Jorgensen – mentor qua Mentor –emulates Athene and Minerva as all three women assume the role ofMentor. Through the past 40 years Estelle Jorgensen has mentored countless students and colleagues in her career in higher education. She has chaired at least 37 doctoral dissertations and documents at Indiana and Walden Universities and as an outside reader. This historical sketch will present Jorgensen’s work as a thesis and dissertation advisor as well as an informal mentor and as Mentor.