Teaching Methods: Mentoring Graduate Students

Good mentoring is crucial to graduate student success both during and after graduate school. Mentoring moves beyond advising because it becomes a more personal relationship that involves socialization into the norms of the profession, role modeling, career guidance, and friendship along with support during research and thesis preparation. This section provides links to guidebooks and online resources with detailed discussions of issues in effective mentoring for both faculty mentor and graduate student. The final two websites offer more general resources on institutional mentoring programs and faculty mentoring at all levels.

The Graduate School, Michigan State University
This extensive site contains important resources for both graduate students and faculty advisors/mentors at Michigan State University. Includes downloadable guidelines for mentoring and for integrity in research and creative activities. Also has links to graduate handbooks by department.
Link: http://www.msu.edu/user/gradschl/

"How to Mentor Graduate Students: A Guide for Faculty in a Diverse University" (University of Michigan, Rackham Graduate School). PDF/Adobe Acrobat.
This downloadable handbook for faculty members contains guidelines on the basics of good mentorship with special emphasis on mentoring within a diverse community. Includes specific suggestions for dealing with issues that might arise generally and with sub-groups such as female graduate students or those from a racial or ethnic minority.
Link: http://www.rackham.umich.edu/StudentInfo/Publications/FacultyMentoring/contents.html

"How to Get the Mentoring You Want: A Guide for Graduate Students at a Diverse University" (University of Michigan, Rackham Graduate School). PDF/Adobe Acrobat.
This downloadable handbook for graduate students covers many issues important to the mentoring relationship with a special emphasis on a diverse graduate student community and underrepresented faculty.
Link: http://www.rackham.umich.edu/StudentInfo/Publications/StudentMentoring/contents.html

"Mentor and Graduate Student: Strategies for Success" (University of Louisville Graduate School).
A handbook for both graduate student and mentor, it covers specific responsibilities of the faculty member and department as well as the responsibilities of the graduate student. Don't miss the "Parable on Mentoring."
Link: http://graduate.louisville.edu/pubs/mentor-and-graduate-student-strategies-for-success.html

"Advisor, Teacher, Role Model, Friend: On Being a Mentor to Students in Science and Engineering" (National Academy Press, 1997).
A comprehensive guide with information useful for faculty in all disciplines. Summarizes features that lead to successful mentoring relationships with undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students and junior faculty.
Link: http://books.nap.edu/readingroom/books/mentor/index.html

Research Ethics Mini Rounds, Module III, The Mentoring of Graduate Students (North Carolina State University). PDF/Adobe Acrobat.
This module focuses on the ethical dimensions of mentoring graduate students. Offers guidelines and case studies of ethical and other issues in graduate student mentoring. Includes an extensive annotated list of resources on mentoring with many live online links.
Link: http://www.fis.ncsu.edu/Grad/ethics/modules/mentoring.pdf

Resources on Faculty Mentoring (University of Michigan, Center for Research on Learning and Teaching).
Although not specifically focused on mentoring graduate students, this is a comprehensive site with general and discipline-specific resources on mentoring. Contains many online links to articles, institutional mentoring programs, and other mentoring materials.
Link: http://www.crlt.umich.edu/publinks/facment.html

Mentoring (University of Washington, Center for Instructional Development and Research).
This site offers an annotated list of online resources on mentoring, including a link to "Promising Practices on the Topic of Mentoring" that describes numerous and varied mentoring programs across North America.
Link: http://depts.washington.edu/cidrweb/MentoringTools.htm

MSU Resources

Responsible Conduct of Research: http://www.msu.edu/~biomed/rcr/

Human Subjects in Research: http://humanresearch.msu.edu/

Animal Subjects in Research: http://www.msu.edu/unit/ular/

Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities: http://www.urca.msu.edu/