3.2 Confessions of a doctoral supervisor: valuing interdependence  (Page 12/12)

The doctoral mentoring creed I have created with student input will hopefully offer a template for use by faculty committed to mentoring graduate students. I recognize that it can literally take years for professors to develop the know-how that moves their students forward with respect to their university’s graduate systems and protocols; they must also learn how they themselves work best vis-à-vis students, develop those vitally important relationships with gatekeepers, and understand how one part of the system relates to and affects another. While my mentoring creed focuses on individual student and group-based behavior, other possibilities come to mind, such as action-based belief statements that specify expectations for supervisory behavior and performance.

Clearly, the mentoring creed, an idea of my own, could serve to stimulate the foundational work of graduate supervisors so inclined. It can function as an example of“assisted learning”or even as a“fundamental best practice”of doctoral programs in educational leadership and administration and other education disciplines (Mullen, 2006, p. 105). In order for cohort mentoring groups to form and thrive, expectations must be recorded, ideally collaboratively, and updated over time. Committed doctoral supervisors know first-hand that mentoring is a complex and demanding activity necessitating a long-term commitment to individual students for which“contracts”serve as anchors.

A mentoring creed can offer vision and protection, but it is only a guide, largely because“social interactions are extremely complicated”(Winston, 2006, p. 123). On an abstract level, practical leadership anchored in contractual understanding and nurtured through positive interdependence facilitates the learning capacity of individuals and groups. On a human level, interactions and relationships are works in progress—these are often times messy, unpredictable, and at times unresolved. Nonetheless, critical reflection on doctoral mentoring enables personal troubles and sensitive issues to be articulated. Importantly, this activity allows public discourse to be framed and possibly heard.

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