Mentoring

Graduate mentors should conscientiously supervise, encourage, and support you in your academic endeavors and assist you in securing research support. 

Graduate mentors should respond effectively, respectfully, and in a timely manner to requests for guidance and support from mentees. 

Graduate mentors should advise you concerning professional ethics, encourage the practice of research and publication consistent with ethical standards, and help you avoid ethically questionable situations. 

Graduate mentors should strive to enhance the educational value of teaching and research assistantships of you under your supervision. To do so they should provide discipline-specific guidance for new and experienced GTA sand GRAs. 

Graduate mentors should be objective in the evaluation of research and academic performance and communicate that evaluation fully and honestly to their students. Graduate mentors should report accurately on the competence of you to other professionals who require such evaluations. 

When engaged in teaching, research, or supervision, graduate mentors should recognize the power they hold and should avoid engaging in conduct that exploits or demeans you or that could be construed as an abuse of that power. 

Graduate mentors should not permit personal animosities or intellectual differences with colleagues to impede your access to those colleagues or interfere with your research or progress toward a degree. 

Graduate mentors should aid and advise you in seeking professional employment inside and outside of academia, taking into account the current state of the job market and your particular situation. This includes directing you towards appropriate professional development resources and advising you about career opportunities and implications associated with their participation in particular research projects or degree programs. 

Graduate mentors should be sensitive to the specific challenges faced by international students and students who identify as members of one or more underrepresented group. This may include directing you toward appropriate resources, including the following: Office of Multicultural Affairs, International Support Services, Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging,  Emily Taylor Center, Center for Sexuality & Gender Diversity, Support Services for Undocumented Students, as well as DEI resources in the College.  

You should be open and willing to discuss their professional goals, aspirations, and areas where you need guidance with your mentor. 

You should be open to guidance and criticism from your mentors. 

You should respond effectively, respectfully, and in a timely manner to communication and guidance from mentors. 

You should come to scheduled meetings prepared and on time. Meeting agenda templates are available for you to prepare for meetings. 

You are strongly encouraged to establish and maintain multiple mentoring relationships or develop a network of mentors that can provide support and guidance throughout their graduate career and beyond. You are encouraged to include, as part of this network, colleagues, faculty beyond their department, university staff, alumni, and external professionals. 

You are strongly encouraged to take advantage of resources across campus to develop short-term and long-term academic, research, and other professional goals and be willing to discuss these with your mentor.