Cultivating Research Mentorship Relationships
These resources aim to support both mentors and mentees in cultivating productive and rewarding mentorship relationships that effectively address the mentee’s goals for scholarly and professional development.
While these materials are focused on supporting graduate student mentorship, they can be adapted to apply to the mentorship of postdoctoral fellows and undergraduates in research settings.
Resources for Faculty Mentors
Faculty mentorship not only plays an integral role in the success of graduate and postdoctoral students, but also enriches the broader scholarly community. Mentees become empowered to identify and pursue their academic and career goals, and mentors experience the opportunity of gratifying interpersonal relationships while advancing the discipline by counseling mentees in effective and innovative research, teaching practices, and professional development.
- In collaboration with the TLC and the Faculty Senate’s Graduate Council, the Division of Graduate Studies provides an overview of Successful Mentorship Practices and a growing Mentorship Spotlight on successful faculty mentorship practices at UC Santa Cruz
- TLC’s Faculty Toolkit for Graduate Student Mentoring offers an archive of resources related to the mentorship of graduate students
- TLC’s Quick Guide to Graduate Student Mentorship provides a short list of actions geared towards successful graduate student mentorship. These competencies are adapted from the University of Michigan’s “How To Mentor Graduate Students: A Guide for Faculty” and Entering Mentoring (Pfund, Branchaw, and Handelsman 2014)
- TLC’s Tips for Meeting with Graduate Student Mentees provides advice on meeting with graduate students, including creating mentorship agreements, setting agendas, practicing active listening, summarizing take-aways, establishing expectations, and addressing conflicts
Resources for Graduate Student Mentees
While you are a graduate student, your mentors can help you feel empowered to identify and pursue your academic and career goals, counsel you in effective and innovative research and teaching practices, and offer psychosocial support in navigating the challenges and responsibilities of your specific graduate program as well as your broader discipline and the institution.
- TLC’s Graduate Student Guide to Mentoring Relationships offers resources for graduate students who are eager to learn effective practices for pursuing and maintaining productive mentorship relationships with faculty members
- TLC’s Graduate Student Mentorship Needs Checklist can also help you figure out if any particular forms of support you are seeking can be met by cultivating a larger network of mentors, from within or outside of your field
- TLC’s Tips for Meeting with Faculty Mentors provides advice on meeting with faculty mentors, including creating mentorship agreements, setting agendas, practicing active listening, summarizing take-aways, establishing expectations, and addressing conflicts
Additional Resources: Mentorship Templates
These mentorship templates can promote aligned expectations and effective communication in mentoring relationships, as well as facilitate the development of broader mentor networks.
Sample Individual Development Plan
An Individual Development Plan (IDP) is an individualized planning tool used to identify and track long- and short-term academic and professional development goals, and can be a useful communication tool between mentees and their mentors. There are two widely used free online IDP tools: MyIDP (for those working in STEM fields) and ImaginePhD (for those working in the humanities and social sciences). IDPs are particularly great tools for discussing mentorship needs with a faculty mentor, and they can also be useful to bring to a peer mentor to ask for support in identifying resources related to specific goals.
Sample Mentorship Agreement
Mentors and their mentees may find it useful to collaboratively develop a practical mentorship agreement that establishes each person’s responsibilities and expectations as they relate to communication, goals, and meeting practices. Mentorship agreements can provide the structure and set of topics for a mutual discussion about aligning expectations, and allow mentors and mentees to proactively set up a supportive and mutually respectful mentoring relationship.
Sample Mentor & Resources Map
Faculty mentors and peer mentors alike can encourage mentees to fill out a mentor map to identify their broader networks and to remember the many different aspects of holistic support that mentees need to thrive. Mentor maps support mentees to feel embedded in a broader academic community, which can support a sense of belonging.