Handling Tricky Mentoring Situations Session begins at 1PM ET/12PM CT/11AM MT/10AM PT. Please configure your audio by running the Audio Set Up Wizard: Tools>Audio>Audio Set Up Wizard. Rique Campa Associate Dean of the Graduate School, Professor of Wildlife Ecology Michigan State University Welcome to the Effective and Inclusive Research Mentoring CIRTLCast Series Anita Mahadevan-Jansen Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Neurological Surgery, Director of Vanderbilt Biophotonics Center (VBC), Director of VU-CIRTL, Director of Undergraduate Studies BME Vanderbilt University

Handling Tricky Mentoring Situations: Effective Mentoring of Graduate Students Henry (Rique) Campa, III, Ph.D., C.W.B.® Associate Dean, The Graduate School and Professor of Wildlife Ecology Michigan State University YOU are the “mentor”, “boss”-remember: *Graduate education is a dynamic process, full of stochastic events *As a faculty member, mentor, leader-you have responsibilities and obligations to meet *“One-size does not fit all” – one mentoring model does not work well for all – this includes whatever works well for you. *What is the “interest-based approach” to resolving issues?

Scenarios (“real-life”): What would YOU do? YOU have to make decisions-immediately and others in the near-future You are at a regional, disciplinary conference it is 10p.m., you receive a call at your hotel room from one of your Ph.D. students to tell you that another one of your students does not plan to show up tomorrow morning to give his conference presentation because he is “too stressed out”. He is on his way to his parent’s home and doesn’t know when he’ll be back/if at all. He doesn’t intend to call you. Members from the funding agency supporting this work will be attending the conference session and are looking forward to a project update. Additionally, fieldwork (i.e., data collection period-January-August) needs to start in three weeks, however, the Christmas holiday is just two weeks away. Missing a field season is not an option due to availability of funding and contractual obligations. YOU are the mentor: What decisions and actions do you need to make in the next 24 hours? What decisions and actions do you need to make in the next week?

Responses on the Whiteboard (no responses on the whiteboard indicate “no decisions” thus you are avoiding the issue(s) ) Decisions/actions within the next 24 hours? Decisions/actions within the next week?

Scenarios (“real-life”): What would YOU do? YOU have to make decisions-immediately and others in the near-future One of your Ph.D. students is approximately 1 month from completing her dissertation and then after you review it one more time, will distribute it to her committee. She is nearly done and has done a fabulous job—you both are very excited about her success! She receives a call from her dad-her mom has suddenly been hospitalized, she needs to go home immediately and is uncertain when she’ll return. She is gone 10 days, her mom passes away. After many hours of talks over coffee, she resumes work on her dissertation. After 1 month, no progress has been made, all she wants to do is re-analyze data (not needed), funding is quickly running out, and the deadline for a final project report is quickly approaching. YOU are the mentor: What decisions and actions need to happen this week?

Other scenarios to think about… -An M.S. student has successfully defended her thesis. At the defense, you discover she did not pass a statistics class and, therefore, does not have enough credits to graduate. She is returning to India in 2 days. -You discover that a research technician has fabricated data on a project for approximately 1 week. How will you confront him and what will you do? This person has been a reliable worker for the last year. -You are on a Ph.D. student’s committee. The night before you find out one of the chapters in his dissertation is not included (i.e., the last one, it is listed in the Table of Contents, and it is your area of specialization). His seminar and defense start tomorrow at 8:30a.m. *Graduate education is a dynamic process, full of stochastic events *As a faculty member, mentor, leader-you have responsibilities and obligations to meet *“One-size does not fit all” – one mentoring model does not work well for all – this includes whatever works well for you. *Use the “interest-based approach” for resolving issues. *Expect the unexpected!

The art and flexibility of mentoring Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, PhD Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Biomedical Engineering Professor of Neurological Surgery Director – Vanderbilt Biophotonics Center Director – VU-CIRTL

Being a mentor  You can be “friends” with your grad students but  remember  You are the “boss”  You will be a counselor, a mentor, an advisor  Not just for research  You will be called upon to  Settle disputes  Build confidence  Be a sounding board

Scenarios (“real-life”): What would YOU do? You will be mentoring students from very different walks of life. Your mentoring style will have to be flexible and specific to a particular student and will depend on many things. As a female advisor in Engineering, many of my students are male. So you have a male student who you realize over the first year of your mentorship has trouble receiving criticism from you. You get push back for every suggestion you make. You also notice that similar feedback from a male co-investigator gets action. You have managed to navigate this personality conflict to the near conclusion of the student’s PhD. The student has 1 more paper left to get data for and write, when the student informs you that he has received a fellowship to go to MIT but it starts within 2 months so he has to defend asap. YOU are the mentor: How do you respond at the time of the meeting? What decisions and actions do you need to make in the next?

Scenarios (“real-life”): What would YOU do? You get a call from the Dean of students – He/she has been informed that one of your PhD students has threatened to commit suicide. YOU are the mentor: How do you respond within the next 24 hours? What decisions and actions do you need to make in the next week/month?

Scenarios (“real-life”): What would YOU do? You have 2 PhD students working on a federally funded grant with a co- investigator in an area that is not your field. During the subsequent two years, the co-investigator has identified a staff member in his/her lab to work with your students. Your students send their resp. data to the staff member (who is partially supported through your grant) who analyzes the data and sends the results to your students. Two years later as the students are working on their papers and close to defending, you realize something is off. You follow up with your students, meet with your collaborator and essentially find out that the results provided by the staff member is wrong. For this discussion, lets ignore your handling of this situation with the collaborator. YOU are the mentor: What decision and actions do you need to make within the next 24 hours? What decisions and actions do you need to make in the next week/month?

Scenarios (“real-life”): What would YOU do? One of your 2 nd -3 rd year graduate student is taken sick and goes home for care. The student is diagnosed with cancer and expected survival is low. YOU are the mentor: How do you respond (a) to the sick student (b) to the rest of the members of your lab? Subsequently and in a very short time frame, the student passes away. You are upset but…. YOU are the mentor: How do you respond within the next 24 hours? What decisions and actions do you need to make in the next week/month?

Scenarios (“real-life”): What would YOU do? During weekly meetings with your students, one of them comes to your office and pretty soon into the conversation, she/he gets emotional (starts crying) and essentially says she/he feels unappreciated, that you are ignoring her/him (mostly because you had to cancel your last two meetings with the student) and she/he is not sure how she/he feels about working in your lab. YOU are the mentor: How do you respond to this during the meeting? What decisions and actions do you need to make in the next week/month?

To sign up to hear about these and other CIRTL events, Setting Clear Expectations and Creating Mentoring Partnership Agreements September 23, 1PM ET/12PM CT/11AM MT/10AM PT Presenter: Bennett Goldberg, Professor of Physics and Science Education and Director of STEM Education Initiatives, Boston University Upcoming Events