3.3 Mentoring doctoral students: the need for a pedagogy  (Page 2/10)

Returning to undergraduate retention data for insight

It may seem unrelated to draw a parallel between the study of undergraduate retention rates and a chapter devoted to the mentoring of doctoral students. However, some important information from very recent studies can be considered as significantly related (e.g., Chronicle of Higher Education, 2005; Creighton, 2006). For example, one of our themes is the alarming 50% non-completion rate of doctoral students in educational leadership. As mentioned earlier, much of the literature on mentoring focuses mostly on undergraduate students and much less exists in the form of empirical studies devoted to the mentoring of doctoral students. Is it perhaps wise at this juncture to investigate any factor that may transfer from one area of study to the other?

In a recent study, Creighton (2006) investigated the relationship between graduation rates at University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) public universities and the percentage of students from underrepresented populations (e.g., African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American). Results revealed graduation rates for the subgroups ranging from very low graduation rates of 20-30% to very impressive graduation rates of 94-98%. Creighton’s further question focused on the reason for such wide disparity among universities considered more alike than different (i.e., research institutions with prestigious Carnegie classifications).

Creighton first found 11 universities with graduation rates for underrepresented populations above 70%. The rationale for selecting universities having graduation rates of 70% or higher was to highlight the universities that at least matched the 70% national average graduation rates of Whites (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2005). These 11 universities and their 6-year graduation rates for underrepresented populations are displayed in Table 1.

The important finding in Creighton’s study revealed the 11 UCEA universities having programs in place to further the academic success of underrepresented populations, such as the mentoring and advising of students with substantive faculty-student interaction, mentorship, and participation in student organizations. The institutions showed a high regard for diversity and fostered a college climate of genuine concern regarding the possible effects that anticipatory stress could have on the interaction of minority students. In addition, the faculty and student affairs professionals at the 11 UCEA institutions are acutely aware of the varied effects that ethnic group membership have on the social encounters of these students and exert collaborative effort to actively address issues related to the social experiences of racial-ethnic group members.

Table 1 UCEA Graduation Rates by Race/Ethnicity (L. Creighton, 2006)

The counseling programs at the 11 UCEA institutions cited as having high graduation rates for these students have programs in place that help foster students’self-efficacy. These schools have professional counselors or graduate student advisers available to assess students’academic and personal needs. Taking physical, economic, social, and cultural environments into consideration, counseling staff members work to involve students in academic and extracurricular activities that integrate them into the campus community and promote personal well being and success. These programs encourage students to maintain respective cultural values and simultaneously employ strategies to negotiate negative messages possibly perpetuated by the dominant society (Lesure-Lester&King, 2004).