In the spring of 2000, the department of political science at the University of Colorado received a Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) grant through the American Political Science Association. Grant funds were used to sponsor discussions about how best to prepare young political scientists to meet their professional and scholarly responsibilities as members of the discipline (see <www.preparing-faculty.org>). A central theme of a recent PFF meeting at Colorado was the importance of mentoring relationships in the process of graduate student education and faculty preparation.