Lately, I’ve been comparing notes with other graduate students in my faculty (i.e., medicine) regarding the roles and responsibilities of thesis supervisors toward their graduate students. It surprises me how much variability there is in the extent of supervisor involvement in graduate student projects. At one extreme, a few graduate students claim that they see their supervisors on a daily or nearly-daily basis, and that their supervisors are actively involved in conducting experiments, literature review and writing papers. On the other extreme, I talked to students who had supervisors that they rarely saw (once a month), who did not know or understand the nature of the experiments being conducted in his/her lab. One student even claimed that she was responsible for “ghost-writing” grant applications for her supervisor. This hands-off mentoring approach really scares me. Especially in science faculties, since I believe that unsupervised graduate students are more likely to make mistakes, which could lead to a tremendous waste of time, money and possibly even the publication of erroneous data. My question is this: Do most universities have policies or guidelines regarding what constitutes adequate supervision? If they do exist, what can be done about a supervisors who are consistently neglectful of their responsibilities?

- From a Canadian Doc-Talker

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Oh, boy! Doc-talker, you just touched one of our real ‘hot buttons. This lack of advising standards is a problem. In the ASGS article, “Disseration Advisor User’s Manual,” we look at its causes, and what strategies and recourses are available to graduate students who experience this problem. The lack of advising standards really springs from a dearth of institutional interest and support in focusing on advising as a major function of faculty, and we present suggestions about what students can do to improve the situation, and what to do if you suffer from inadequate advising.