Working with graduate students is a challenging, but rewarding part of professorial life. In my university, supervision is considered a part of teaching in a workload that is divided in thirds between research, teaching, and service. Depending on one’s rank, supervision of a range of graduate students is expected. When I first started, I was assigned three students, but some assistant professors are only assigned one to begin with or are given the opportunity for co-supervision to learn from a mentor. Now, as an Associate Professor in my faculty, I am expected to supervise 4-7 graduate students a year. Each year some may graduate, but new ones are added, so the 7 students I am working with are at different stages of their graduate careers. With that number of students, and potentially more in coming years, I have developed some “work smarter” guidelines that I would like to share here.
- Consider meeting with your students on a regular basis as a team – The content of my discussions with students is determined by their needs at the time, but that content does not need to come exclusively from me. I meet weekly with my five doctoral students (both EdD and PhD stream) and postdoc. For the postdoc, this is a mentoring opportunity, but it is also a great help for me as she has been through an EdD and can speak from experience.
- Encourage peer mentoring – Within the group there are students who are farther along in their program and can answer questions from the other students. Conversely, the students who are earlier in their program provide a fresh lens to the discussions with the students farther along. When a more senior student is asked to explain their methodology to someone who has never heard of it before, the senior student is tasked with explaining clearly and succinctly, in a way that might not be necessary with the supervisor. Informal groups or pairings develop as well so by knowing the other students I supervise, students can network for additional support.
- Make time for individual meetings as well – Since group meetings do not meet the needs of all students at all times, I take a break from the group meeting cycle and schedule individual meetings periodically. I also make myself available to meetings upon request.
- Recognize that the graduate student journey is more than academic – Graduate students represent a heterogenous group of people, so even when meeting together, there are considerations of wellness, equity, diversity and inclusion to build into the meetings. Wellness check-ins and information sharing about resources can be a part of any meeting. My meetings are hybrid to include those EdDs who do not live locally, but are an option for local students not coming to campus that day. I turn on closed captioning for my own benefit as the audio in the room may not be sufficient for my hearing loss and I recommend the same for my students working in a second language. We also work to foster a culture of respect and intellectual curiosity where we honour the different ontologies and epistemologies in research as well as the different life circumstances of the members of the team.
Certainly I did not invent the concept of supervising students as a team. I credit wonderful colleagues who shared her tips with me. I can recommend further insights into supervision through Michele Jacobsen’s supervision blog https://michelejacobsen.ca/supervision-blog/ and content for graduate students from The Professor is In https://theprofessorisin.com/
