(184a) How to Grow Your Graduate Students (Mentoring Tips)

Unfortunately, good mentoring skills are not innate, and the average assistant professor has had little or no training in these skills prior to accepting a tenure-track position. How then does a new professor, whose time, resources and energy are at a premium, successfully mentor their graduate students to cultivate productive, competent members of the scientific community? Here, mentoring tips from various resources will be shared, along with personal mentoring experiences. Topics include:

(1) Defining expectations in the mentoring relationship [what the student expects of the advisor, and what the advisor expects of the student];

(2) Defining roles of a faculty advisor [how the advisor shapes the educational experience, personal and professional development, and networking capacity of the student];

(3) Developing a healthy mentoring style [faculty advisor as coach];

(4) Building support structures [for the student and the faculty advisor];

(5) Building a mentoring environment [creating venues for mentoring moments].