The Graduate School Bulletin
Appendix B
Guidelines for Good Practice in Graduate Education
It is essential that graduate students:
- Conduct themselves in a mature, professional, and civil manner in all interactions with faculty and staff.
- Recognize that the faculty advisor provides the intellectual and instructional environment in which the student conducts research, and may, through access to teaching and research funds, also provide the student with financial support.
- Recognize that faculty have broad discretion to allocate their own time and other resources in ways which are academically productive.
- Recognize that the faculty advisor is responsible for monitoring the accuracy, validity, and integrity of the student's research. Careful, well-conceived research reflects favorably on the student, the faculty advisor, and the University.
- Exercise the highest integrity in taking examinations and in collecting, analyzing, and presenting research data.
- Acknowledge the contributions of the faculty advisor and other members of the research team to the student's work in all publications and conference presentations.
- Maintain the confidentiality of the faculty advisor's professional activities and research prior to presentation or publication, in accordance with existing practices and policies of the discipline.
- Take primary responsibility to inform themselves of regulations and policies governing their graduate studies.
It is also imperative that faculty:
- Interact with students in a professional and civil manner in accordance with University policies governing nondiscrimination and sexual harassment.
- Impartially evaluate student performance regardless of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or other criteria that are not germane to academic evaluation.
- Serve on graduate student committees without regard to the race, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin of the graduate student candidate.
- Prevent personal rivalries with colleagues from interfering with their duties as graduate advisors, committee members, or colleagues.
- Excuse themselves from serving on graduate committees when there is an amorous, familial, or other relationship between the faculty member and the student that could result in a conflict of interest.
- Acknowledge student contributions to research presented at conferences, in professional publications, or in applications for copyrights and patents.
- Not impede a graduate student's progress toward the degree in order to benefit from the student's proficiency as a teaching or research assistant.
- Create in the classroom, lab, or studio supervisory relations with students that stimulate and encourage students to learn creatively and independently.
- Have a clear understanding with graduate students about their specific research responsibilities, including time lines for completion of research and the thesis or dissertation.
- Provide verbal or written comments and evaluation of students' work in a timely manner.
- Discuss laboratory, studio, or departmental authorship policy with graduate students in advance of entering into collaborative projects.
- Refrain from requesting students to do personal work (mowing lawns, baby-sitting, typing papers, etc.) without appropriate compensation.
- Familiarize themselves with policies that affect their graduate students.
Graduate education is structured around the transmission of knowledge at the highest level. In many cases, graduate students depend on faculty advisors to assist them in identifying and gaining access to financial and/or intellectual resources which support their graduate programs.
In some academic units, the student's specific advisor may change during the course of the student's program. The role of advising may also change and become a mentoring relationship. The reward of finding a faculty mentor implies that the student has achieved a level of excellence and sophistication in the field, or exhibits sufficient promise to merit the more intensive interest, instruction, and counsel of faculty.
To this end, it is important that graduate students:
- Devote an appropriate amount of time and energy toward achieving academic excellence and earning the advanced degree.
- Be aware of time constraints and other demands imposed on faculty members and program staff.
- Take the initiative in asking questions that promote understanding of the academic subjects and advance the field.
- Communicate regularly with faculty advisors, especially in matters related to research and progress within the graduate programs.
Faculty advisors, on the other hand, should:
- Provide clear maps of the requirements each student must meet, including course work, languages, research tools, examinations, and thesis or dissertation, and delineating the amount of time expected to complete each step.
- Evaluate student progress and performance in regular and informative ways consistent with the practice of the field.
- Help students develop artistic, interpretive, writing, verbal, and quantitative skills, when appropriate, in accordance with the expectations of the discipline.
- Assist graduate students to develop grant-writing skills, where appropriate.
- Take reasonable measures to ensure that each graduate student initiates thesis or dissertation research in a timely fashion.
- When appropriate, encourage graduate students to participate in professional meetings or perform or display their work in public settings.
- Stimulate in each graduate student an appreciation of teaching.
- Create an ethos of collegiality so that learning takes place within a community of scholars.
- Prepare students to be competitive for employment that includes portraying a realistic view of the field and the market at any given time and making use of professional contacts for the benefit of their students, as appropriate.
In academic units, faculty advisors support the academic promise of graduate students in their program. In some cases, academic advisors are assigned to entering graduate students to assist them in academic advising and other matters. In other cases, students select faculty advisors in accordance with disciplinary interest or research expertise. Advising is manifold in its scope and breadth and may be accomplished in many ways.
A student's academic performance and a faculty member's scholarly interests may coincide during the course of instruction and research. As the faculty-graduate student relationship matures and intensifies, direct collaborations may evolve which entail the sharing of authorship or rights to intellectual property developed in research or other creative or artistic activity. Such collaborations are encouraged and are a desired outcome of the mentoring process.