Because most students and faculty have only partially formed concepts of what it is we should expect from the relationship neither benefits fully from the potential mentoring could bring. Higher learning suffers as a result. We live and work within an organic community based upon critical thinking, intellectualism, and interested communication, and so a community critically dependent on careful sharing. The mentoring relationship, too, is a shared, symbiotic experience, really a microcosm of the Academy. Faculty and graduate students both should consider what it is they want out of such a relationship, realizing that any opinions they first form will change and evolve with the relationship itself.
Interested mentors can lead, cajole, criticize, and support.
Thoughtful graduate students can learn that help can come from many places and often in what are at first unrecognizable forms. Everyone who has considered mentoring realizes mentoring takes effort from all parties involved, yet very few have really considered all that effort entails. Graduate students know they must ask. But we are also looking for honest queries. Ultimately, we are looking for possibilities.