Reflecting on Your Own Mentoring Practice

Many faculty members find that their mentorship evolves with experience. Regardless of your career stage, it is useful to occasionally set aside time to reflect on your own mentoring practices and to make an intentional plan for your mentoring practice.

Here are some questions that may help guide your thinking about mentorship.

• How would you characterize your own experience with your mentors in graduate school? Was it effective? Was it lacking in any way? Would your mentors' style be suitable for every mentee?
• How did your mentors think about graduate education? Was it a test where only the best rose to the top, a collaborative effort between student and mentor, or something in between?
• What values about graduate education do you bring to your mentoring? Have you adopted these thoughtfully or are you replicating your own experience as a student?
• What have you learned from mentoring others?
• Have you articulated a mentoring philosophy?

Recommended practices at the program level

• Normalize the discussion of mentoring practices among faculty members by providing time during meetings or retreats.
• Regularly ask the graduate students and postdocs for feedback on how the program is going, what mentoring they receive, and what kind of additional mentoring would be helpful.
• Pair new mentors with experienced, successful mentors and encourage regular conversation.
• Encourage the development of a team mentoring model, so that students receive feedback and mentoring from a range of mentors who may have strengths in a variety of areas.
• Recognize excellent mentorship in the same way we recognize excellent research and teaching. Programs should routinely nominate their outstanding mentors for the Graduate School's Mentor Award, awarded at Graduate Commencement every year.