What Makes A Good Mentor?

By Lamar Riley Murphy and Gaye Wong
Graduate College Assistant Deans
April 30, 1997

The Graduate College Award for Outstanding Mentoring of Graduate Students is a new award, created upon recommendation of the Graduate Student Advisory Council. The award recognizes exemplary efforts by the graduate faculty in advising and serving graduate students. This award was presented for the first time in 1996-1997.

What is it about the nominees and winners that make them regarded as excellent mentors? What special qualities do they have? In the nomination materials – which include letters from students, faculty and essays by the nominees themselves – several characteristics appear repeatedly.

Respectful: Good mentors treat their students with respect and trust, viewing them as invaluable but inexperienced junior colleagues. They see graduate students as apprentices; it is their responsibility, privilege, and reward to guide students successfully through that apprenticeship. As one nominee phrased it, “Working closely with one’s advisor is more than a supplement to formal instruction; it is the core of the matter.” Good mentors act in accordance with their vision that their students are, in the words of a nominee, “important partners in learning, teaching, and research.”

Committed: Good mentors make “an investment of faith in the growth potential of students,” starting at the beginning of graduate school – or earlier – and continuing well beyond graduation, eventually evolving into a collegial relationship. This commitment manifests itself every day and in every facet of graduate training and professional socialization. As one nominee put it, “That commitment must be very broad, including not only counsel on acquiring intellectual skills likely to be of later value, but direct guidance on everything from public speaking style to the management of career details such as nuances of interaction with journal editors and academic/corporate politics, to name only two.”

Demanding: Good mentors have high standards for themselves and their students, and they constantly strive for excellence. Wrote a former student, “He always guided me in a direction that was within my reach to complete the work, but clearly had me challenged to the maximum extent of my abilities.” Good mentors are sensitive to the toll such high expectations can take on students’ self-confidence, and they consciously endeavor to build rather than erode self-esteem. Explained one former student, “[My mentor's] distinctive mentoring style allowed me room to stumble, to take blind alleys and wrong turns, but always made me know I was accompanied on the journey. [My mentor] encouraged even as he criticized, and he criticized frequently.”

Adaptable: Good mentors recognize that different students have different needs and strengths. In fact, the best mentors capitalize on such differences by tailoring training opportunities to the needs and aspirations of each student. Good mentors do not force students to adapt to their own styles; rather, good mentors adapt their approaches to the needs of individual students. A former student said his mentor had an “uncanny ability to match his style of mentorship to the student’s disposition. He seemed to know exactly how to critique and motivate each of us in ways that revealed our deficiencies but left us invigorated for the next attempt.” Since students are continually developing throughout their graduate careers, effective mentoring also requires a process of continual reassessment and readjustment. What is common to all effective mentoring, however, is, in one mentor’s words, “very personal attention” and “quick and detailed feedback.”

Available: Despite their own busy schedules, good mentors are accessible, and approachable, not only to their own current and previous advisees but to other students as well. Their doors are literally always open to their students, and they are available at nights, on weekends, and while on sabbatical. Marveled one student, “[My mentor] always gave me his undivided attention, although he had countless other commitments.” Another wrote, “One of [his] students once told me that he worked so hard to turn around a draft of his dissertation proposal in a timely manner because it embarrassed him that [his advisor] was working harder on it than he was.”

Encouraging: Good mentors encourage students to develop their own ideas by giving the kind of feedback that promotes a sense of independence, responsibility, and self-confidence. They encourage students to experiment and teach them not to fear mistakes. Said one former student about his mentor, “He hands his students the rope and shows them how not to hang themselves.” Another mentor was said to have the “knack of giving comments in a way that elicited rather than imposed ideas.” Another student attested to the importance of this approach: “[He] was the first teacher in my entire college career to take my work seriously. His encouragement, regard, rigor, and attention to my work were contagious, and I began for the first time to take myself seriously because he took me seriously.” Indeed, the intellectual passion and enthusiasm that good mentors communicate to their students is contagious. Students find inspiration in their examples, and are further inspired when they realize that they are being encouraged to pursue topics far beyond the particular expertise of the mentor.

Proactive: Good mentors do not wait for their students to seek them out with questions or problems. Good mentors have frequent formal and informal meetings with their students, and they aggressively make available and encourage participation in meaningful professional development activities. The nominating materials abound with anecdotes about students whose lack of self-confidence, experience, or foresight would – without the intervention of a mentor – have kept them from pursuing an opportunity that later proved to be extremely beneficial. Good mentors also provide opportunities for other students in their programs. One nominee, for instance, has improved professional development opportunities for all of the students in his department by instituting such programs as a graduate “buddy” system, faculty-graduate student

round tables on graduate and professional issues, and various colloquia on job search and interview techniques.

Nurturing: “Good mentors,” wrote a former student, “nurture the careers of their students. They introduce them to the right people, they are generous with credit and praise, they put in good words in the right ears which result in the earliest professional opportunities, they encourage after setbacks. In short, they spend the credit of their hard earned reputations to advance their students.” Good mentors spend significant amounts of their time promoting the careers of their students, beginning with the earliest days of graduate school and continuing well beyond the first job.

Holistic: Good mentors view the educational process as encompassing much more than mastery of a particular academic subject. As a former student explained about his mentor, “after spending my graduate career with [him], I know now that an educated individual knows more than the contents of numerous text books and journal articles. An educated individual is knowledgeable about the world around him, tolerates any and all views, goes out of his way to make others a better person, and accepts nothing less than the best possible effort.”

Influential: “An advisor,” wrote one finalist, “has the responsibility to be a positive role model…” Good mentors, as she and the other finalist suggest, practice what they preach. Noted another professor, “students learn at least as much by first-hand observation of you … as they do by what you tell them.” Good mentors have influence that extends far beyond the students with whom they have personally been involved, so that their influence ripples through succeeding generations of students. Wrote one student about the three years he spent studying with one nominee, “Three years is not a long time in my life. However, three years studying with [her] has changed my whole life.” Another of this professor’s students made a similar testimonial, concluding that her “impact over the generations is immeasurable.”