Best practices for graduate students now cover mentoring, TA training

The Graduate Student Experience Initiative has launched two new best practices for graduate and professional education at Carolina, translating several years of collaborative work into guidance that schools and units can put into practice.

The new best practices — one on individual development plans and mentoring agreements and the other on teaching assistant preparation — were highlighted at the initiative’s annual kickoff Sept. 2. The meeting also focused on current challenges: funding pressures, work expectations and shifting federal policies.

“The GSEI is only worth its salt to the extent that it is pragmatic, and that it’s actually recognizing and trying to address the real challenges in today’s world,” said Beth Mayer-Davis, dean of The Graduate School. “Graduate students came here to learn. They came here to get a degree. And to get a degree, they have to have time for their scholarship.”

Chancellor Lee H. Roberts recalled his own graduate experience as a law student. “I’m delighted to see that people are really rolling up their sleeves to try to understand how we can improve and enhance the graduate student experience here at Carolina,” he said. “We’re not a top-tier research university without our graduate students.”

Development to implementation

John Easterbrook, associate dean for strategic initiatives in The Graduate School, introduced the two best practices, which have been approved by the provost and published for use across the University.

The first, from the Faculty Mentor Training working group, recommends that every graduate student have an individual development plan and a mentoring agreement, updated at least annually. Both were piloted last year with 33 mentor-mentee pairs from 11 schools, with strong positive results on a follow-up survey. “These templates are not just tools,” Easterbrook said. “They really are about facilitating an ongoing conversation between mentor and mentee.”

The second provides a shared baseline of competencies every teaching assistant should have before or shortly after entering the classroom, following a review that found TA training uneven across programs at Carolina. The accompanying online TA Training Foundations Course awards a digital badge. Expanded over the summer to include artificial intelligence modules, it covers teaching foundations, instructional practice, University policies and student support resources.

What’s ahead this year

As the new best practices move into use across the University, the GSEI working groups are also developing the initiative’s next set of recommendations and resources.

• Student Life and Wellness will develop department-facing guidance for students taking and returning from leave, plus guidance on international student support and mentoring.
• Faculty Mentor Training will recommend a University-wide approach to tracking mentor training participation and build a Mentoring Minute Hub of short videos and resources featuring award-winning mentors.
• Graduate Student Working Conditions will guide the phased pilot of a graduate student employment agreement, starting with three units this fall and expanding in the spring, and will begin work on graduate assistant workload expectations.
• Career Readiness, new this year, will assess students’ professional development and experiential learning needs and, in partnership with an education consulting group, interview North Carolina employers about the skills they seek in graduate-level talent.

Recommendations approved by the provost become best practices for graduate and professional education at UNC-Chapel Hill, with implementation left to individual schools.

At the kickoff event, Mayer-Davis said the initiative is really run by Easterbrook and Libby Dotson, project manager for strategic initiatives in The Graduate School. Easterbrook passed the credit along.

“Correction,” Easterbrook said. “The GSEI is actually all of you, and we wouldn’t be here without everyone’s efforts.”