Establishing Mutual Expectations With A New Mentee

Your new graduate student may have a very different understanding of the advisor/student relationship than you do. Perhaps their view is colored by their undergraduate research experience or previous graduate experience, by their friends' experiences, by their mentoring experiences in other countries, or by what they've read. They may enter the program viewing you as a boss, judge, advocate, collaborator, friend, parental figure, or teacher—or some combination. These expectations of you may also reflect your mentee's assumptions about mentors of your gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, nationality, etc. In turn, your own expectations of your mentoring relationship have no doubt been shaped by your own experiences, both positive and negative, from your own time as a student, as an advisor to previous students, and by conversations with colleagues.

It is much easier to get on the same page at the start of the mentoring relationship than to recalibrate expectations when things go awry. The mentoring literature suggests having an organized, concrete discussion at the start of your mentoring relationship about the expectations you have for your new student, as well as the expectations your student should have of you. You may want to spread this discussion over the course of several meetings.

Here are some questions to stimulate your planning.

What does your graduate student need to know?

• Program requirements and policies. The Graduate Student Handbook and the Graduate School Bulletin contain the policies for all graduate students at the University. Your graduate program should also have its own handbook—make sure your new student knows about all these resources. Your student may have attended the Graduate Student Orientation offered by the Grad School, as well as an orientation offered by their graduate program, so they might have a good sense of what's expected. They may also be feeling overwhelmed by too much information. Thus, it's good to check with them about what information they have received, and how confident they are in what they need to know. Many problems can be traced to students not understanding how to maintain progress or how their progress will be evaluated.
• How their time will be spent as they move through their degree. New students sometimes try to do everything (e.g., research, teaching, taking classes, and volunteering for outreach events) without recognizing that they will have time later in their programs for particular opportunities. Talking to students about how they might view graduate school (and their later careers) as a book with many chapters, allowing them to gain experience in different facets of their career over time, rather than all at once, can be very helpful. Conversely, some students may need to be motivated to explore certain avenues that will help them reach their goals. Introducing students to the academic vitae, and showing them examples of vitas for students “on the market,” might help give them a sense of the kinds of experience they will aim to develop over time.
• Funding sources and work obligations. What does the student's funding plan look like over the course of their degree? Will your student be a TA? If so, for how many hours? If your student is going to be funded by you as a research assistant, how many hours per week will that involve? How will the work relate to the student's thesis work?
• Fieldwork. If your discipline involves fieldwork, how will it be funded? Will the student travel alone or with others? How will communication be maintained if either of you is traveling?
• Authorship. What are the publication requirements for graduation? What does the dissertation look like? For fields in which co-authored work is common, what are your expectations for authorship? Will you automatically be included as a co- author on your student's work? Will your student be included as a co-author on all projects that they work on? How will the authorship of other researchers (e.g., undergraduate assistants) be determined?
• Meetings. How often will you meet with your student, and using what modalities? What are your expectations for these meetings? Who sets the agenda?
• Group dynamics and organization. If you have a group of researchers, how do they interact? Is it a hierarchical or flat organization? Who will introduce your new student to the remainder of your group?
• Working hours. When do you expect your student to be on campus? Is it OK if they work off-site or do you want them in a particular place at particular times?
• Conference attendance. Do you expect your student to attend conferences? Which ones, and who pays? Is there money available from the graduate program?
• Social events. Are there social events on the horizon, either for your research group or the graduate program, that you should point out?
• Career preparation. While graduation can feel quite distant, it takes time to explore and cultivate career aspirations, develop synergistic skill sets, and build professional networks. By starting early, students can apply an efficient, intentional approach to skill development and career planning that enhances and supports their academic training. Give your mentee permission and even the expectation that they will devote time and energy to career preparation. Are there events or programs, such as those offered by the Office of Professional Development that you specifically recommend?

What can your student expect of you?

This initial conversation is also a good time to acknowledge explicitly that you too have responsibilities in the relationship and to make it clear how you will meet them.

• Communication. What's the best way to communicate with you? Will you communicate by email, text, phone, social media, Slack, Skype?
• A plan for developing independence. How will you help your student develop as an independent researcher? Do you, for example, have a phased plan that you prefer to follow? For example, in some disciplines, it is natural to have mentees first join an ongoing project in order to learn particular techniques, and then gradually transition to more independent projects.
• Feedback. Do you prefer small chunks of work to review (e.g., sections of a paper, figures one by one) or do you prefer longer pieces? How quickly will you provide feedback on drafts? While typical expectations of responsiveness varies by field, it is recommended that you provide feedback on submitted work ideally within two weeks and within a month at the maximum.
• Letters of recommendation. How much lead time do you need to provide a letter? What information do you need from your mentee in order to write the letter?
• Confidentiality. What is your policy for the confidentiality of your conversations? Can you clarify under what circumstances you might disclose something to others, and to whom? (Be aware of your responsibilities under Title IX rules, as explained later in this guide.)
• Responsiveness to changes in your mentee's needs. Your mentee's goals, life circumstances, and interests may all change over the course of your relationship. What is your plan to review these periodically with your mentee?
• Checking in for potential problems. Often we find that mentors don't know that their students are facing difficulties and blithely assume that all is well, whereas mentees may be afraid or embarrassed to bring up problems. It's good to routinely ask your mentee about what is going wrong as well as what is going right, and give them space to answer.
• Support for work/life balance. Your mentee will be happier, more productive, and less likely to burn out if they take breaks from work to be with friends and family, exercise, and take vacations. What is your plan to support work/life balance? In some fields that are time-constrained (e.g., seasonal fieldwork, lab animals that need care, working with children at the start of a school year), perhaps there are predictable patterns in workload that you should discuss with your mentee. Can you lay out the plan for busy and less busy times? Can you role model for them how you work to maintain balance? Be aware of relevant policies outlined in the current Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) bargaining agreement.

Ideas for how to have this conversation

Remember that it is your responsibility to initiate this conversation. Don't expect your new student to know what to ask, or to feel comfortable in asking.

Depending on their personality, advisors differ on how they prefer to approach this conversation.

• Some UMass mentors go through a list of discussion items together, such as the one above, with the student, and come to an agreement about each. It is useful to follow up with an email that outlines what was discussed.
• Others use a compact, or a written agreement with the student that the mentor designs in advance. Some examples are at The UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. If you choose to create a compact, be sure that it is in line with the UMass collective bargaining agreement with the Graduate Employment Organization (GEO); for example, avoid language that suggests that the student must work more hours on their RA or TAship than what they are paid for.
• Some UMass mentors recommend starting with a sample compact and editing it together with their students. If you work with multiple students, it can be great to do this all together so that everyone has a sense of shared ownership.

Recommended practices at the program level

Graduate programs should have a graduate student handbook with deadlines, policies, and evaluation metrics clearly specified. This should be updated annually. Problems that come to the attention of the Graduate School can often be traced back to the lack of a detailed, clear and updated handbook.

It should be clear how a student should best study for comprehensive exams, and how those exams are evaluated. Uncertainty about exams is enormously stressful for graduate students; we can mitigate some of that stress while still having a challenging exam. In programs with written exams that are given to a group of students, it is best practice for the answers to be graded by examiners that are blind to student identity. With oral exams, some programs have an independent moderator present, who is neither the student's advisor nor on the exam committee, who keeps time and ensures that the student is treated fairly. An experienced moderator can offer perspective during the discussion by the committee about how the questions asked and the student's performance compare to other exams.

All programs on campus should have an orientation session for incoming graduate students.

Many programs assign peer mentors to incoming graduate students that can help with everything from giving new students a realistic time estimate required by different courses or TAships, as well as getting settled, finding grocery stores, etc.

Additional resources

A useful list of resources and tips are provided in a Graduate Student Guide to Campus Resources. Direct your new student to it.

Information about off-campus housing can be found at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Off Campus Housing website, and on-campus at the Living at UMass website.

The Graduate School provides many services, including guidance on policies and procedures, assistance with grant and fellowship applications (including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship), as well as hundreds of events through the Office of Professional Development (see Professional Development chapter for details) and the Office of Inclusion and Engagement.

The Graduate Student Senate provides social engagement, leadership and advocacy opportunities.

The Graduate Employment Organization is the graduate student bargaining unit, and advocates for graduate students on wages, healthcare, and other benefits. A list of benefits is provided by the UAW/UMass Trust.