Mentoring
By Dr. William Gannon, PhD
What is Mentoring? What it means to mentor or to be an advisee has been difficult to formalize. However, responses from both sides of this relationship are nicely represented in a paper in Nature. The mentor clearly shows focus on a student in helping build the student’s career, but also the trainee has a responsibility to work with the mentor and show responsibility for their own progress. Terms such as mentor-for-life, enthusiastic, passionate, sensitive, appreciative, respectful, unselfish, inspiring, available, financial and moral support, balancing direction and self-direction, a questioner, a listener, celebrating, aware that there is life after/as part of a career, develop skills, networks, builds a scientific/social community, and creative often come up. In fact, these terms among others come from participants in my own sessions that I offer as a part of research ethics training at the University of New Mexico. Students and mentors alike realize that mentoring is a relationship of mutual trust, respect, responsibility, sensitivity, communication, and balance. I say “mutual” because the student must actively give to the relationship.
Why is Mentoring Important? Mentoring is one of the most important skills for professionals to learn. Although learning to mentor has been largely left to “on the job training” recent required training of graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduate students who are supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health has sent thousands of these pre-professionals to Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) classes to learn about – among other things – mentoring. These federal agencies (and others are likely to follow in the coming years) realize that mentoring affects productivity and quality of professional training. It is also a critical step in curbing the number of cases of research misconduct, or the more pervasive, questionable research practices. The value of learning mentoring content in a standard way is to provide issues and expectations that can matter to a student as they near completion of their degree. In other words, if you find out in your 3rd year that your mentor is retiring, or all your papers must list her as first author, or data collected under your advisor’s funding is owned by the funder who will not allow you to publish it (including in your dissertation or thesis), could, to say the least, be a kink in your career. Learning about these possible scenarios but also the way to best communicate with your mentor could avoid problems down the road.
Find a Mentor. If you are just starting graduate school – or even now considering applying to a program, how do you find a mentor? Most find someone in their field of study and have researched the potential mentor’s career as far as funding and publication history, job security, and status in the relevant scientific or scholarly society. They will also have looked up their graduate students (current and graduated) and asked them what sort of person their mentor is. Once a mentor is selected, a face-to-face discussion is important to understand likability, goals, expectations, financial support, and overall guidance. A second meeting should even talk about tricky things such as publications, authorship, project funding, workload, and anything else that comes to mind. Sometimes it is difficult to find everything in one person. Graduate or dissertation committee members can help fill any deficiencies if a mentor seems perfect, but not especially strong in one part of your program interest such as statistics. Lastly, sometimes these relationships just don’t work, and that can be felt by both of you in the mentoring relationship. Before bad feelings develop or a bad relationship goes too far, negotiate ways to get out of the relationship and segue into another mentor. You will both be relieved and likely have a very successful graduate career when finished under a new mentor. Remember your mentor is someone you will want to always be able to call on for letters of recommendation, for help with other colleagues, or just to say thank you down the road.
In the End…Be a Mentor! Science published a paper in 2006 highlighting the merits of training mentors, describing a University of Wisconsin program that was developed to train mentors. Outcomes listed showed that those trained in mentoring significantly provided a better relationship with students especially in areas such as diversity and the mentor’s expectations. Mentor training is an effective way to improve communication and other essential skills necessary for effective and meaningful mentoring relationships. These authors also have a very useful reference available to help programs complete their own mentor training program, available at: http://www.hhmi.org/resources/labmanagement/downloads/entering_mentoring.pdf). As a student or a new career professional there are many opportunities to learn good mentoring. The days of “learning on the job” may not be completely past, because new situations arise that are hard to prepare for (think social media!), however, provided with tools important to allow mentors to weigh the possibilities, support for making the right decision is less problematic.
For More information about this “Advice” please feel free to contact Bill Gannon at wgannon@unm.edu or through the University of New Mexico, Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research office, Office of the Vice President for Research, 1717 Roma NE, MSC05 3480, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 USA. Phone: 505-277-3488 or 277-6128 Fax: 505-277-7216 Cell 505-249-7906
wgannon@unm.edu http://research.unm.edu/researchethics/
Works Cited
Handelsman, Jo, et al. Entering Mentoring: A Seminar to Train a New Generation of Scientists. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. Web. 28 Oct. 2012.
Lee, Adrian, Carina Dennis, and Philip Campbell. “Nature’s Guide for Mentors: A Guide on Mentoring from Nature.” Nature 447 (2007): 791-797. Print.
Pfund, Christine, et al. “The Merits of Training Mentors.” Science 311 (2006): 473-474. Print.