Academic Services

Mentoring Resources for Faculty

Guides to Mentoring

• Mentoring Graduate Students, Dr. Michael C. Loui, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This one-page listing of mentoring "do's" provides key reminders for busy faculty mentors.
• Mentoring, Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate School. In 14 pages, the core values of mentoring as well as the responsibilities of faculty mentors and students are outlined. Links to additional online resources are also provided.
• On the Right Track: A Manual for Research Mentors, Council of Graduate Schools. This 26-page publication focuses on the ethics of graduate research supervision and mentoring, and discusses the individual and corporate responsibilities of faculty in producing scholars capable of conducting independent, original, and ethically sound research. A hard copy of the publication is available for review in the Graduate Division.
• How to Mentor Graduate Students: A Guide for Faculty in a Diverse University University of Michigan, Rackham Graduate School. The first section of this 49-page guidebook details good mentoring practices and discusses general advice that mentors may give to graduate students. The second section outlines concerns expressed by groups of students who have been historically underrepresented or marginalized in higher education, and discusses these issues in relation to mentoring.

Promising Practices in Mentoring

The University of Washington's "Re-envisioning the Ph.D. Project" provides a web-based public forum for learning about diverse programs and practices that address issues affecting Ph.D. education. Over 40 promising practices related to mentoring may be found on the site; several are summarized below.

• Excellence in Mentoring Award at Harvard University The Graduate Student Council at Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences established the Excellence in Mentoring Award in 1998 to recognize faculty who truly go out of their way to mentor graduate students, honoring faculty for efforts that often go unrecognized. Recipients of the annual award excel at supporting, encouraging, and promoting their graduate students' research, education, professional and personal development, and career plans. By recognizing prime exemplars of mentoring who can serve as role models for the entire faculty, the Graduate Student Council hopes to encourage excellence in mentoring by all faculty members.
• Graduate Assistant Teaching Mentor Program at Louisiana State University. Louisiana State's Graduate Assistant Teaching Mentor Program allows a major professor to nominate a student whom s/he will supervise in the teaching of a course. Enrollment offers thirty spaces for graduate students. Although the graduate student designs the course and teaches it, the mentor offers commentary on the syllabus and examinations, and visits the class periodically. The Teaching Mentor Program has proven to enhance the teaching skills of participating Ph.D.s considerably.
• Summer Doctoral Fellows Program at Washington State University. The Summer Doctoral Fellows Program provides selected doctoral students with the opportunity to work closely with faculty mentors at Washington State University in preparing for future careers as faculty in colleges and universities. The program is aimed primarily at students who are U.S. citizens from diverse backgrounds. During the six-week program, Fellows are actively engaged in seminars on the changing roles and expectations of faculty, the future of the professoriate, technology and distance education, and issues facing faculty of color and women in the academy. In addition, Fellows are expected to design individualized programs for enhancing their ability in teaching, research, and scholarship.
• Women's Mentoring Dinners at the University of California, San Francisco. At these events, 20 or so women students and post-docs from various UCSF programs and departments (Ph.D., M.D., D.D.S., Pharm. D.) have an informal dinner and conversation with an accomplished woman clinician or scientist. The speaker is asked to share the key professional and personal experiences that have shaped her career and life paths, and offer general thoughts and advice on professional success and personal balance. Question and answer and other interaction between participants are encouraged.