Mentoring for Engineering Academia — and related disciplinesgray/bogazici.pdf• provides advice and help on preparing and submitting articles for scholarly publication and, on the

Bogazici University, Istanbul

25 April 2006

Mentoring for Engineering Academia— and related disciplines —

Robert M. GrayInformation Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering

Stanford, CA 94305

[email protected] http://paesmem.stanford.edu

This work was partially supported by the Presidential Award Excellence in Mentoring in Science, Mathematics,

and Engineering through the White Office of Science and Technology and the National Science Foundation

and by the Stanford University School of Engineering. A pdf of these slides may be found at

http://ee.stanford.edu/˜gray/bogazici.pdf

Introduction

The problem: Often too few engineers (and related technical

practitioners) in important areas

impact on economy, national infrastructure, national defense

“. . . if I had only known about the system, the

courses, the orals, the advisers, the profession, the workload, the

support organizations, the importance of communication skills,

the funding, . . . ”

“. . . if there had only been good advice, an

honest appraisal, a role model, others like me, support groups,

warnings of pitfalls, encouragement, proper perspective, . . . ”

Mentoring for Engineering Academia 2

Common complaints of dropouts, unhappy students and

practitioners:

• Received poor advice (or no advice)

• Missed opportunities

• Poor understanding or misconceptions of education system,

profession

• Lack of role models

• Felt isolated, lack of diversity

• Lack of public understanding of contributions of field


Critical bottleneck: engineering faculty —

small numbers can have a major impact

Some issues: (interrelated)

• Recruitment, across a wide spectrum

• Environment, should be productive and fulfilling

• Mentoring of students, of junior faculty, of middle faculty


Mentor

The Oxford English Dictionary defines

mentor as “allusively, one who fulfils

the office which the supposed Mentor

fulfilled towards Telemachus. Hence,

as common noun: An experienced and

trusted adviser.”

Telemachus and Mentor by Pablo E. Fabisch

from Les Adventures de Telemaque

Clearly many styles, stages, models, . . .


Why am I here?

Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics

and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) “Administered on

behalf of the White House by the National Science Foundation,seeks to identify outstanding

mentoring efforts/programs designed

to enhance the participation of

groups underrepresented in science,

mathematics and engineering. The

awardees will serve as exemplars to their

colleagues and will be leaders in the

national effort to more fully develop the

Nation’s human resources in science,

mathematics and engineering.”


How?? To begin,

• winners give talks at a symposium on mentoring;

• nominations are proposals for $10K grants – winners are PIs.

For the talk: collected cumulative wisdom from nominating

students.

For the grant: organized a workshop with matching Stanford

funds & appointed nominating students to organizing/editorial

committee.

June 2004 PAESMEM/Stanford School of Engineering

Workshop on Mentoring for Academic Careers in Engineering

http://paesmem.stanford.edu


This talk: Reflections and observations on the practice of

mentoring drawn from from the workshop (including preparation

and hindsight), and future projects.

Aimed primarily at students interested in pursuing academic

careers and junior faculty and those who mentor them —

but most comments apply more generally.


Mentors mentored by mentees ⇒ feedback

Feedback— a basic principle of engineering

and a useful model or metaphor for mentoring

-&%'$

6

- Graduation -

Hindsight �

Feedback Loop

Stay accessible to and keep in touch with former students,

benefit from their hindsight ⇒ collective wisdom


Collective Wisdom on “Best Practices”for a Mentor

Culled from former students and conversations with successful

colleagues

Environment Work to create a comfortable, friendly,

cooperative, and productive environment with the best

possible resources for all students. Success begets success

and attracts top quality students.

Cooperation Discourage aggressive competition among

students, encourage cooperative efforts and openness. Sadly

many people need education in basic politeness and diplomacy

skills.


Counter argument The real world is cutthroat and hard,

students should not be coddled.

Counter-counter argument Students can be prepared for the

tough bits, academia should optimize learning.

Recruitment Actively recruit a diverse group. It improves the

quality of life for all involved and enhances group morale. A

diverse group of students can actively assist in recruiting new

generations.

Confidence Many students start with little, but can become

outstanding when properly encouraged and appreciated.

Particularly true in underrepresented groups.

Related: The “imposter syndrome”

http://www.impostorsyndrome.com/


Credibility The better we are at what we do, the better mentors

we will be.

Integrity Words alone won’t do it (just read the newspapers).

Many students do not take it seriously. Mentors must. Too

much cynicism in professors can cause real damage.

Communication skills Brilliant research is of little use if not

understood. Correct English with good style is critically

important. Practice writing and speaking skills constantly.

Chores and citizenship Engage students in professional

responsibilities: reviewing, proposal writing, presentations,

recruiting, mentoring.


Professional Visibility Send students to conferences to attend

and give talks. Rehearse them extensively. Introduce them to

colleagues. Get them plugged in.

Encourage them to participate in and help with local workshops

and conferences.

After graduation recommend them for program committees,

technical committees, reviewing chores.

Credit Give it generously to students. It helps them and makes

you look good.

Attitude Building and maintaining a high quality and diverse

group takes conscious commitment, effort, and action. This is

particularly true when initially bringing diversity to a monolithic

group.


Sharks Although many institutions have programs for

diminishing sexual harrassment, it still exists. Be sensitive

to potentially embarrassing or dangerous situations and do

not accept inappropriate behavior from colleagues towards

your students. Take very seriously complaints of inappropriate

behavior.

Followup Mentoring does not stop with a degree, students

evolve into colleagues.

Visits from alums provide wonderful examples, information,

and inspiration.

Former students often lack mentors at new institutions.


How find good mentors?

For graduate students the research supervisor usually plays

the role of primary mentor

Some feel that it is best to find a mentor who is not also the

research supervisor. A good compromise is to go for multiple

mentors.

Desirable attributes in a mentor:

• An adviser should act as a positive role model for students.

• An adviser should be trustworthy.

• An adviser should have good personal and communication

skills.


• An adviser should be encouraging.

• An adviser should be technically strong and possesses a good

scholarly reputation in the associated field.

• An adviser should be highly accessible.

• Former students of the adviser should have found good

positions after graduation.

• Papers coauthored by the adviser with students should often

have students as lead authors.


How be a good mentor?

The most obvious contribution of a PhD research supervisor

is guiding students to learn how to do, evaluate, and present

research. In addition, typically a mentor

• provides academic advice, both for meeting program

requirements and for building a strong background in related

areas, such as statistics, mathematics, physics, and biology;

• provides a sounding board for career planning and opinions on

possible career tracks;

• provides an opportunity and critiques for technical talks in

preparation for oral exams, thesis defenses, job interviews,

conference presentations;


• provides an informed source for comparing job offers which

can help students reach a sound decision;

• keeps students posted on current literature, meetings, and

news;

• helps hone student’s writing skills, both for technical articles

and for outreach articles that expand the audience for the

technical field;

• provides advice and help on preparing and submitting articles

for scholarly publication and, on the other side, for reviewing

work by others;

• provides connections into professional networks of colleagues,

introduces students to colloquium speakers and other visitors,

suggests collaboration opportunities.


Mentors to avoid

— Using American film icons as examples

• Professor Ned Brainard: the absent minded professor

• Dr. Frankenstein:unapproachable

• Dr. Indiana Jones:inaccessible

• De-mentors: suck joy, happiness, and hope – and eventually

the soul – from their victims

• Dr. No, Professor Moriarty: evil


Be wary of mentors who are only cheerleaders without also

being constructive critics.

Do your homework, talk to peers, but remember

even professors with fearsome reputations might have excellent

and contented students, while the apparent paragons might have

divisive and stressed groups.


Moving on: junior faculty

Finding a mentor: many schools have programs,

but find one or two – preferably tenured. How help?

• Advice on key academic responsibilities of teaching and

advising, negotiating balance and getting good evaluations.

• Help finding resources

• Navigating the departmental maze, who actually does what.

TA and RA approvals and appointments, ethics and honor

codes.

• Proposal writing, examples and editorial help.


• Demystifying the tenure process, planning ahead. Maximizing

visibility, balancing committees and service with research and

teaching, professional positions.

• University connections, inside and outside your department

• Help keep things in perspective, transcending the daily crises.

Mistakes happen, get past it (grant and paper rejections are

not personal).

• Academic leadership

• Balancing family and work (see Proceedings)


How can individuals and organizations fostergood mentoring?

Promote events that spread the word and stimulate discussion:

• PAESMEM http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/HRD/paesmem.asp

• Talks like this one

• Workshops, e.g., 2004 PAESMEM/Stanford School of

Engineering Mentoring Workshop

http://paesmem.stanford.edu/

Free proceedings available (email [email protected])


Men

torin

g fo

r Acad

emic C

areers in En

gin

eering

In June 2004 a workshop was held at Stanford University on the subject of mentoring for academic careers in engineering. For two days the workshop provided a forum on the needs, goals, methods, and best practices for mentoring engineering students interested in an academic career, young faculty beginning such a career, and recently tenured faculty. The emphasis was on mentoring members of underrepresented groups in academic engineering, especially women. The workshop was jointly supported by the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (PAESMEM) through the National Science Foundation and by the School of Engineering at Stanford University.

The workshop had two primary goals. One goal was to provide an opportunity for mentors, mentees, and mentoring facilitators to educate each other and have fun doing so. The second goal was to produce proceedings of the workshop, including summaries of the talks and discussions. This book fulfills that goal and provides a distillation of the best practices, resources, family issues, and other important issues raised at the workshop.

Grayphics Publishing

Mentoring for Academic Careers in Engineering

Proceedings of thePAESMEM/Stanford School of Engineering

Workshop


• Mentoring resources (list tailored to US and specifically to

women, but the ideas are general)

– MentorNet

http://www.mentornet.net– Society of Women Engineers (SWE)

http://www.societyofwomenengineers.org/– Women in Electrical Engineering (WEE)

http://wee.stanford.edu– Women in Computer Science (WICS)

– Women in Science and Engineering (WISE)

http://www.engr.washington.edu/wise/– Women in Engineering Program and Advocates Network

http://www.wepan.org/


What next?

In September 2005 a proposal was submitted to the Banff

International Research Station (BIRS) for a followup workshop

“Mentoring for Engineering Academia II”

Good news: Proposal was successful and workshop will take

place July 22 – July 27, 2007.

Bad news: Attendence limited to 40

Some ideas extracted from email blizzard that produced

proposal:


Objectives

The development and documentation of ideas on how to

mentor students, colleagues, and academic administrators on

issues relating to academic careers in engineering and related

disciplines with an emphasis on issues relating to women faculty

in electrical engineering and computer science.

Workshop participants will discuss, distill, and document

methods to

• mentor students on pursuing a successful academic career of

teaching, research, and leadership,


• mentor academic colleagues on

1. seeking genuinely open and fair searches which actively seek

and recruit a wide diversity of applicants,

2. working for a supportive and cooperative environment in

which junior faculty can thrive and advance,

3. helping recently tenured mid-career faculty plan the next

stages of their career, and

4. encouraging and assisting junior and mid-career faculty to

consider roles in academic adminstration.

• mentor academic administrators on providing adequate support

for individual students and student organizations


Topics: Updated from first workshop

• Fundamentals of mentoring for engineering academia

– Undergraduate students

– Graduate students

– (New subtopic) Mentoring for potential job search issues

which generally concern women

– Junior faculty

– Post-tenure faculty

• Mentoring for academic leadership: Directors, Chairs, Deans,

Provosts, and Presidents

• Faculty and Family: Strategies for time sharing profession and

parenting


Topics: Added

• How to turn lip service into genuine action

• Promoting fairness and openness in search committees

• The myths and standard excuses for preserving the status quo

and how to respond

• Measuring sustainable progress for women in academia

– Metrics - are they needed or valid?

– Quantifying success - what should it look like?

– Assessing the engineering climate and the value of mentoring

• Advice and resources when you are invited to speak on

mentoring, gender, and diversity


• Advice and resources when you are asked to serve on

institutional visiting and review committees

• Outreach: NSF Criterion 2, how to ensure broad impact

and quality, outreach to the public, outreach to improve the

pipeline (US specific, but many other countries have similar

requirements)

• Building a mentoring system from the ground up: a one-

stop shopping guide for deans/chairs to put things in place.

Existing exemplar mentoring programs and resources such as

the NSF ADVANCE Program


Parting thoughts

? Many points may seem obvious or simplistic, but unfortunately

they are not generally recognized or practiced.

?Workshops

• are an intense, productive, and informative means of

considering these issues;

• can have a big impact on a few, well-placed individuals;

• have a moderate cost given the benefits.

In particular, beautiful location + hot topics can attract an

excellent mix of experience and beginners.


Documents

Mentoring for Engineering Academia — and related disciplinesgray/bogazici.pdf• provides advice and help on preparing and submitting articles for scholarly publication and, on the