Suggested Guidelines on Establishing and Maintaining a Mentoring Relationship

For ISU ADVANCE Scholars

• Think about your personal and career goals and how you envision your Eminent Scholar assisting you in achieving your goals.
• Conduct informal “reference checks” on your prospective Eminent Scholar. Seeking opinions from the person’s colleagues and former or current doctoral students is a great way to capture a snapshot of the person’s mentoring style.
• Be open to constructive criticism. Be willing to share your successes and failures. Be ready to engage in a candid and supportive exchange of ideas.
• Respect your Eminent Scholar’s time as much as your respect your own. Be explicit about your own needs and limits.

For Eminent Scholars

• Help to foster important connections and visibility for your ISU ADVANCE Scholar.
• Provide constructive and supportive feedback.
• Respect your ISU ADVANCE Scholar’s time as much as your respect your own.  Be explicit about your own needs and limits.

Possible topics to explore together

• If you haven’t already, exchange CVs as a "getting to know you" activity.
• Consider whether a contract, informal or formal, would be mutually beneficial in framing your relationship.
• Explore grant sources and strategy tips for funding.
1. Exchange drafts of each other’s grant proposals or papers
2. Explore publishing outlets and processes.
3. Discuss strategies on managing a lab, effective teaching, or recruiting graduate students or post-doctoral fellows to your research group.

Contract components

• Acknowledge that both of you are entering into a mentoring and professional relationship voluntarily and that the relationship should be a mutually beneficial endeavor.
• Establish together an understanding of the level of confidentiality that will be maintained throughout your relationship.

  Will all conversations be considered confidential?
  Will only "sensitive issues" (however you both define sensitive) be held in confidence? Are there any issues that are off-limits?

  In short, the mentoring relationship involves trust and it is important for both the ISU ADVANCE Scholar and the Eminent Scholar to be in sync with each other’s expectations and wishes.
  
  
• Establish together a time frame in which to engage in the mentoring and professional relationship. Explore the possibility of renewing or continuing the relationship if both parties consider it a mutually beneficial endeavor
• Recognize when it’s time to part ways or when the relationship has served its intended purposes. If either party feels that her or his intended goals are not being met, try to explore why the relationship is not working. Both parties can agree to a "no-fault conclusion" to the relationship and exit gracefully.

(Information collected from the ADVANCE programs at Brown University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Rhode Island)