Margaret F. King, Ph.D.

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Mentoring Graduate Students Ethical Issues

• Margaret F. King, Ph.D.
• The Graduate School

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Mentoring Graduate StudentsThe Ethical Dimension

• Ethics Reasoned moral judgments in response to
  the following questions
• What is my duty in a given situation?
• What is right, fair, obligatory?
• Mentoring graduate students among the special
  duties that come with assuming the role of
  university professor

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Mentoring Graduate Students Core Responsibility

• Helping graduate students become competent
  scholars or scientists capable of conducting
  independent, original and ethically sound research

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Who mentors graduate students?
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When should mentoring occur?
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Guiding Principles A Mentoring Compass
Right Empowerment
Right Attention
Right Boundaries
Right Empathy
Right ethically sound also adequate or
effective.
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Right Attention

• To students fit with and
  preparation for a particular program
• To students uniqueness (background, personality,
  strengths, weaknesses)
• To students progress through program
• To aggregated student performance (indicators of
  the degree to which program outcomes are being
  achieved)

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Right Boundaries

• Maintaining appropriate professional distance
• Avoiding romantic relationships
• Resisting the urge to try to clone yourself in
  your students
• Avoiding conflicts of interest and conflicts of
  commitment

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Conflicts of Interest and Commitment

• Conflict of Interest The real or apparent
  interference of one person's interests with the
  interests of another person or persons, where
  potential bias may occur or unfair treatment may
  result
• Conflict of Commitment The situation that occurs
  when a faculty members external activities or
  commitments adversely affect that faculty
  members ability to carry out university
  responsibilities

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Right Empathy

• Being able to place oneself imaginatively in
  anothers situation
• Respect for difference
• Achieving the right balance between nurture and
  objective evaluation
• Sometimes, having the courage to give negative
  feedback or even to terminate a students program

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Right Empowerment vs. Disempowerment
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Right Empowerment Examples/Features

• Shared knowledge/information
• Clear expectations
• Encouragement/coaching
• Constructive criticism
• Professional development opportunities
• An environment where it is safe to risk
• Advocacy/running interference

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Graduate Student Mentoring Sample Online
Resources

• University of Louisvilles online Mentor and
  Graduate Student handbook http//graduate.louisv
  ille.edu/prog_pubs/mentorhandbook.htm
• University of Michigans handbooks for grad
  students and faculty mentors http//www.rackham.u
  mich.edu/StudentInfo/Publications/StudentMentoring
  /contents.html and http//www.rackham.umich.edu/St
  udentInfo/Publications/FacultyMentoring/contents.h
  tml
• Re-Envisioning the Ph.D. National list of
  grad student mentoring programs
  http//www.grad.washington.edu/envision/practices/
  topics/t18.html

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