Mentorship is a central aspect of our scientific community in QBS. All graduate students in QBS are assigned a mentoring team that will provide team-based, holistic support throughout the first year of grad school and beyond.
While the focus of training is to support the advisees in their formal responsibilities to progress towards academic and scientific goals, the focus of mentorship is the personal and professional growth of an advisee. Mentors share knowledge, experience, networks, and resources to guide, sponsor, and advise students in their development. Since first year PhD students and MS students do not have a formal training advisor, it is essential for them to have access to committed faculty and students for these resources.
Mentoring teams
What is a mentoring team?
The role of this mentoring team is to provide an early-career graduate student with guidance and support as they get off the ground in graduate school. This mentoring team is comprised of the Director of Academic and Student Affairs, a secondary QBS faculty member, and one QBS PhD graduate student that has successfully passed their qualifier exam.
All graduate students in QBS are asked to fill out the QBS mentee introductory survey and are assigned a mentoring team prior to matriculation. Each team faculty and student mentor is also asked to fill out the QBS mentor introductory survey .
Although there are no formal meetings after a student's second year, the secondary faculty mentor and student will still be accessible to serve as mentoring resources for a student. In later years of their candidacy, PhD students will have committees focused on their research (e.g. specialist and dissertation committees) who would also serve as mentors.
When do mentoring teams meet?
All first year QBS PhD and MS students will be assigned to their mentoring teams prior to matriculation and will initially meet with their mentoring team during the QBS orientation. Team meetings will be held quarterly, and team leaders may decide to offer additional social activities for their mentees outside of these meetings. Students are encouraged to schedule an individual meeting with their secondary faculty mentor and PhD student mentor to discuss personal development, career goals, and any hurdles they may anticipate. These meetings can occur at any point throughout the year.
What is the structure of mentoring meetings?
Faculty and student mentors will decide on the final structure and format of each quarterly meeting and may use the QBS mentoring meeting topics document as guide for discussion topics. They may even want to poll the students about topics of particular interest in their team.
Resources for mentors
- A book written by The Howard Hughes Medical Institute specifically for postdocs and new faculty: Making the Right Moves: A practical guide to scientific management and mentoring for postdocs and new faculty (Burroughs Wellcome Fund and Howard Hughes Medical Institute).
- Effective mentoring in STEMM: Effective Mentoring in STEMM: Practice, Research, and Future Directions (National Academy of Sciences, 2017, workshop proceedings).
- Detailed resources for mentoring and cultivating a positive lab environment from the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (Requires a free account).
- Nature's guide for good mentorship: Nature's guide for mentors (Lee et al., 2007, Nature).
- For new mentors. Entering Mentoring: A seminar to train a new generation of scientists (The Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching; 2005).
- Mentoring advice for mentees and mentors in science: Mentoring Advice (Pain, 2012, Science).
- Science writers share their perspectives on mentoring and research integrity. Spotlight on Mentoring (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Research Integrity, 2012)
- Guide to mentoring graduate students. How to mentor graduate students: a guide for faculty (University of Michigan Rackam Graduate School, 2018)
- The Science of Effective Mentoring in STEMM
Resources for mentees
- Great Mentoring in Graduate School from the Council of Graduate Schools (Lunsford and Baker, 2016)
- For students seeking mentors: Graduate Student Mentoring Guide (University of Michigan Rackham graduate school, 2018).
- Spotting a good mentor: Mind Matters: Getting Yourself Mentored (Levine, 2006, Science)
- Mentoring advice for mentees and mentors in science: Mentoring Advice (Pain, 2012, Science).
- A brief primer on the PhD supervision relationship (Madan, 2021, European Journal of Neuroscience).
- Becoming a Resilient Scientists Series
