Faculty mentoring is broader than advising a student as to the program of study to fulfill coursework requirements and is distinct from formal instruction in a given discipline. Mentoring encompasses more than serving as a role model. Because of the uncertainty as to the nature of mentoring, the UC-Davis Graduate Council has outlined the following mentoring roles to guide the relationship between faculty and graduate students. An important corollary to this recognition is that faculty members must realize that much of their interaction with all students has an important mentoring component to it. Graduate students also have responsibilities to insure successful mentoring and these are also indicated below.
Faculty have a responsibility to mentor graduate students.
Mentoring has been defined as . I. Guiding students through degree requirements. 2.Providing clear guidelines for starting and finishing dissertation or thesis work, including encouraging the timely initiation of the dissertation or thesis research. Guiding students through thesis or dissertation research. Encouraging an open exchange of ideas, including pursuit of the student's ideas.