Mentorship
The difference between advising and mentoring can be summarized as follows: advising "focuses on the activities, requirements, and attainment of satisfactory progress through the steps needed to achieve a graduate degree," whereas mentoring "focuses on the human relationships, commitments, and resources that help graduate students find success and fulfillment in the academic and professional pursuits." - UW Physics Department
UChicago Resources
- Departmental Mentorship Guidelines
- Provost's Mentoring Web Site
- Mentoring Graduate Students Toolkit
- Graduate Student Mentee Toolkit
External Resources
- Best Practices for Advising and Mentoring (Brown)
- Effective Practices and Expectations for Faculty Mentors and Doctoral Advisees (Columbia)
- Best Practices for Effective Mentor-Mentee Relationships (Penn Medicine)
- Guidance and core values on the student/faculty relationship (MIT)
“The ideal relationship is a collegial one, in which the common goals are the completion of the student’s degree program in a reasonable time frame and the ongoing success of the faculty member’s research program.” - Variety of resources on mentoring, setting expectations, best practices (U. Illinois)
- How to Mentor Graduate Students: A Guide for Faculty (U. Michigan)
- What Every Teacher and Mentor Should Know: A Guide to Identifying and Reducing Stereotype Threat to Maximize Student Performance (Cathy Drennan, MIT)
Rights and Responsibilities
- Faculty Rights and Responsibilities (MIT)
- Academic Rights and Responsibilities for Graduate Students (Michigan State)
Articles on Mentorship Issues
- A message for mentors from dissatisfied graduate students (Nature)
- Why some professors welcome new lab members with clear expectations—in writing (Science)
- Want to become a better mentor? Ask for anonymous feedback (Science)
- Ten Simple Rules Towards Healthier Research Labs (PLoS Comput Biol)
- Evidence for a Mental Health Crisis in Graduate Education (Nature)
- Graduate students take charge on mental health care (Science)
- In academia, hard work is expected—but taking a break is effort well spent, too (Science)
- What matters in a Ph.D. adviser? Here’s what the research says (Science)
- In some disciplines, heavy drinking is part of the culture. That can be a problem (Science)
- In a first, U.S. private sector employs nearly as many PhDs as schools do (Science)
- The Ideal PhD Mentor--A Student's Perspective (Science)