Mentoring and Monitoring

Student Progress

Ed Bertschinger, MIT
Monica Plisch, APS

Graphic by Raoul Correa, MIT

1. Why should research supervisors
provide mentoring to their students?

A mentor is someone whose hindsight

can become your foresight.
– ancient Chinese proverb

Guide students from surviving to

thriving.
2. What spheres of student education
should mentoring encompass?

What is the difference between an academic

advisor, a career advisor, a research supervisor?
3. In situations when the mentor and/or the mentee
feel uncomfortable communicating with each other,
how can the department help foster the interaction?

1. Department and university mediators, Dean, ombuds

2. Committees (mentoring, thesis, …)
3. Peer mediation and counseling
4. Inform, inform, inform
5. All of the above
4. How can faculty and other researchers
be encouraged to learn more about and
improve mentoring practices?

Nobody cares how much you know,

until they know how much you care.
– Theodore Roosevelt
http://www.aps.org/programs/education/undergrad/faculty/mentor-
training.cfm

http://www.aas.org/cswa/advice.html#10ways

http://web.mit.edu/cortiz/www/Diversity/MITMentoringBooklet.pdf
5. How can departments ensure that
students are receiving regular and helpful
feedback on their progress?

What hasn’t worked very well for us:

1. Chance
2. Annual review form to be filled out by student
and supervisor

What helps:
At-a-glance progress summary
 Summary
1. Why should research supervisors provide mentoring to their students?

2. What spheres of student education should mentoring encompass? (e.g.,

academic development, professional development, etc.)

3. In situations when the mentor and/or the mentee feel uncomfortable

communicating with each other, how can the department help foster the
interaction? (Should a department try to implement a specific framework to
help with such situations?)

4. How can faculty and other researchers be encouraged to learn more about
and improve mentoring practices?

5. How can departments ensure that students are receiving regular and
helpful feedback on their progress?