Advising and Mentoring: Supporting Your Graduate Students

Advising and Mentoring: Supporting Your Graduate Students

The guidance that you offer through mentorship and advising can be transformative and is a critical factor in graduate students’ academic success and well-being. This topic provides you with resources that will help you provide the best support to your graduate students. Are you a new graduate faculty advisor? Be sure to check out our Graduate Faculty Onboarding resource!

Being an Attentive Advisor

These resources will help you with one-on-one advising so you can be perceptive to the needs of your students, and thus allow them to do their best work in their graduate program.

Degree programs are planned by the advisory committee after consultation with the student, unless a field of study has established a uniform curriculum. There is considerable flexibility in meeting special needs insofar as these are consistent with the regulations of The Graduate School. A degree program may entail coursework in more than one field of study, but each program must include a coherent emphasis within one existing field of study and area of concentration, if applicable.

The Questions & Answers (Q&A) at this page provides information to help you support your students and refer them to the resources they may need to be healthy and successful. It is okay to ask a student how they are doing. To the student, you might be the only person that they see often enough to notice their behavior changes. Refer to  the Q&A when determining resources for connection and/or referral.

This is an electronic resource to help faculty and staff recognize, respond to, and refer students in distress and contains important tips and information about a wide range of campus and community resources that are available for students.

To honor the concept of “Career Everywhere”, the Center for Career Development is committed to partnering with faculty and staff to provide them with information, resources, tools, and referral language to help empower our students to identify and achieve their career aspirations.

The Center has co-developed an online Inclusive Career Conversations Training: Reducing Biases and Career Disparagement & Bullying, which takes about 45 minutes to complete and consists of five interactive and self-paced modules. By completing the modules, you can:

    • Increase your awareness about what characterizes healthy and unhealthy career conversations, both as the contributor and recipient of career advice;
    • Equip yourself with knowledge and tools to engage in supportive career conversations. 

To enroll in the Inclusive Career Conversations TrainingReducing Biases and Career Disparagement & Bullying please reach out to Kay.Gruder@UConn.edu

      Provides a detailed description of the various aspects of mentorship between a faculty member and a graduate student.

      The UConn AAUP established the annual Edward C. Marth Mentorship Award to recognize the leadership and dedication of Edward Marth and to encourage and reward outstanding mentoring of graduate students by UConn Graduate Faculty members.

      CSD ensures a comprehensively accessible University experience by providing services to all students with permanent or temporary injuries and conditions. Students may work directly with a Disability Services Provider (DSP) to determine eligibility for accommodations.

      Timely Topics Presentations

      Advisement Meetings

      An academic advisor can be a great source of knowledge and guidance. These resources can help prepare for important advisement meetings and navigate challenges.

      Annual Reviews are critical for the success of your graduate students. As part of an ongoing effort to foster good graduate student mentoring and facilitate communication between graduate advisors and advisees, The Graduate School has developed resources that can help departments and advisors use annual reviews for doctoral and MFA students.

      Access contact information for The Graduate School colleagues who can provide support and answers to graduate students postdoctoral scholars and those who work with them.

      This collection of resources, organized according to the “life cycle” of recruiting, appointing, and supervising a Graduate Assistant, will help faculty and department administrators navigate the many nuances of graduate assistantships.

        A comprehensive guide to everything a graduate student needs to do to successfully graduate and prevent any degree auditing delays.

        Graduate students may need to step away from their academic studies or GA employment at some point during their graduate career. Voluntary separations may include academic leave, exit, or program separation, and the information at this page can help guide students toward the best option for their circumstances.

        Student advocacy, support, and conflict mediation for both graduate students and faculty – contact Cinnamon Adams (cinnamon.adams@uconn.edu)

        Scholarly Misconduct

        Below are resources that explain what is considered scholarly misconduct in both research and academics, how to prevent misconduct, and what to do when you suspect that a student has committed an act of scholarly misconduct.

        At The Graduate School, we understand the importance of preventing and appropriately addressing scholarly misconduct in graduate studies. Please visit this page where specific resources and critical information have been provided to be utilized to prevent and address scholarly misconduct.

        This document highlights the most frequently asked questions, including the definition of scholarly misconduct, what activities constitute scholarly misconduct, and the University’s policy on scholarly misconduct for graduate students.

          This link to the Graduate Catalog outlines the Scholarly Integrity and Misconduct policy, definitions and procedures.

          The chart gives a step-by-step guide to addressing allegations of scholarly misconduct.

          This template letter is for faculty  to notify students of scholarly misconduct. The letter includes the allegation of scholarly misconduct, specific evidence of scholarly misconduct, any academic consequences and steps to appealing the reported scholarly misconduct.

          Cultural Competency: Diversity and Inclusion

          The University of Connecticut celebrates diversity; these resources will help you advise students coming from diverse backgrounds.

          Following the national incidents of racism and racial injustice in Summer 2020, The Graduate School has been reflecting, researching, and discussing how we can better serve our Black, Indigenous, and/or Person of Color (BIPOC) graduate students at the University of Connecticut. This process, undertaken with the assistance of our partners, graduate faculty and staff, graduate student organizations, and graduate students, has resulted in the following report. The report outlines our process, our findings, and, most importantly, our priorities we will be working to address in the 2021-2022 academic year with the purpose of improving the experiences of BIPOC graduate students at UConn.

          International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) relies on academic advisors to provide details related to international students' academic standing. This page describes the information ISSS will be looking to academic advisors to provide and offers tips specifically for advising international students.

              This page helps connect undocumented UConn students with campus, legal, and community resources.

              UConn’s Cultural Centers are vital resources in support of the social, behavioral, and cultural needs of students and are a central point of reference to the broader UConn community regarding issues and historical context related to the particular demographic group represented by the center.  

              This site is the hub for the University’s diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) information and initiatives and provides resources, opportunities for engagement, and celebrations of the many diverse communities who call UConn “home.”

              InForm is a tool to help the UConn community navigate reporting processes and supports available for a variety of incidents including bias, harassment, safety concerns, and other types of misconduct.  InForm is available to anyone coming into contact with UConn.