2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Assessment and Support of Advisor-Student Mentoring for Graduate Engineering Students at a Land-Grant Institution

Presented at Graduate Studies Division (GSD) Technical Session 8: Professional Development for Graduate Students

The faculty mentor-student mentee relationship is often the most influential aspect on the student’s experience during their graduate education. In an effort to optimize graduate student mentorship experiences, [redacted] University launched the Mentoring Improvement Initiative (MII). This three-year program aims to research mentorship and implement positive changes across various levels within the university. The MII included the inception of the Mentoring Fellows Program (MFP), a student-led and faculty-advised initiative designed to research current relationships and design improvements at the college level.

The College of Engineering Mentoring Fellows began by evaluating existing data collected by surveys from the graduate student experience in the research university (gradSERU) online service. The fellows recognized several gaps in [university's] graduate mentoring experience that needed to be addressed: an engineering-specific individual development plan (IDP), surveys of faculty members, and educating students about taboo mentorship topics.

An IDP was created for PhD or master’s students in the College of Engineering. The document is intended to guide students through four steps: a skillset self-assessment, goals for Year 1 of graduate school, a meeting between student and advisor, and progress updates after the first year. The IDP was published on the university website and distributed among the engineering departments in August 2022 and has since received 738 views. In September, a workshop was held to teach students and faculty members how to utilize the document most effectively.

The anonymous faculty survey was designed to evaluate five areas of mentoring graduate students: (a) faculty’s prioritization of time, (b) considerations when mentoring, (c) expectations set by the College of Engineering, (d) interests in using an IDP, and (e) interests in incentives for effective mentorship. A brief series of demographic questions, including years of mentoring experience and tenure status, concluded the survey. Out of the 103 engineering faculty that completed the online survey, 36% currently use an IDP and an additional 39% would be interested in using one if a template were provided to them. Of the faculty that had an opinion on the level of consideration given to grad student mentoring for tenure, 47% stated that it should be a more important consideration.

A four-part workshop series was held over the Fall 2022 semester to inform students about mentorship resources on campus and address difficult topics. The series included: (1) IDP creation, implementation, and other vital resources for graduate student success; (2) guest speaker on the topic of Navigating Toxic Mentoring Environments; (3) discussion on effective mentorship with a panel of [University] mentoring awardees; and (4) panel discussion on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations in mentorship. Follow-up surveys after each workshop showed 91% of attendees gained new perspectives about mentorship.

This first year of the Engineering MFP focused on providing practical resources for students and surveying faculty members to evaluate their mentorship perspectives. The upcoming year will focus on the opposite; a survey will be created to evaluate the advisor-student relationship from the mentee’s point of view, and practical resources for faculty will be implemented.

Authors

Rachel Elisabeth Gehr http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6011-9279 Purdue University [biography]

Rachel is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow pursuing her PhD in Engineering Education at Purdue University. She has earned a BS in Civil Engineering from LeTourneau University and MS in Environmental Engineering from Purdue. Rachel’s current research focuses on fair assessments and evaluation in engineering, but she also has experience in photochemistry, water quality, PFAS remediation, and disinfection. In her free time, Rachel enjoys kayaking, hiking, and walking her dogs with her partner.
Miss Emily Garcia Purdue University [biography]

Emily Garcia is an Industrial Engineering PhD student at Purdue University where she served as a Graduate Mentoring Fellow under the Mentoring Fellows Program, a 5-year initiative by the Graduate School to improve mentoring at Purdue. As a Graduate Mentoring Fellow, Emily represented graduate students in the College of Engineering and worked with others to improve mentoring relationships between engineering faculty and graduate students.

Emily earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2020 in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. She now focuses on optimizing decision-making support systems for long-term care through her research.

Emily has also been an advocate for minorities in STEM at Purdue as the founder and graduate advisor of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) graduate chapter on campus, graduate student recruiter for the Industrial Engineering department, and as a panelist for the Early Discovery Mini-Conference and Minority for Engineering Program. She also continues to be active in service for the Purdue community as the incoming graduate advisor for Tau Beta Pi Indiana Alpha chapter.
Suzanne Swaine Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Suzanne Swaine completed her bachelor and master's degrees in Aerospace Engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She then spent six years as an aircraft performance technical specialist at Gulfstream Aerospace before deciding to return to academia. She is currently a PhD student in Aerospace Systems Engineering at Purdue University and hopes to stay in academia after graduation.
Stephen McBride Purdue University [biography]

Stephen McBride is the Assistant Director of Graduate Student Success for the College of Engineering. With a strong background in leadership development and career preparation, he received many of the highest honors in the National 4-H and National FFA Organizations. During his year of service as the National FFA Southern Region Vice President, Stephen was trained as a professional facilitator and keynote speaker while representing the National FFA Organization on his visits to more than 30 states and Japan. He is passionate about student development and connecting students with the resources and training they need to achieve their career and professional goals.
Joseph Vincent Rispoli http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4514-3390 Purdue University [biography]

Joseph V. Rispoli graduated from Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1998, earned the BS degree in Electrical Engineering, BS degree in Computer Engineering, and Minor in Chinese History from the University of Virginia in 2002, and earned the PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2015. During the nine-year interim between degrees, he was a development engineer with Dell in Austin, Texas, where he worked on high-speed digital design and virtualization technology for multiprocessor servers. He joined Purdue in 2015 as an Assistant Professor, and he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2022.

Dr. Rispoli’s research focuses on novel hardware and methodology for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). He is particularly interested in anatomically-tailored radiofrequency coil design for high-field studies, methodology for parallel-transmit MRI, in vivo spectroscopy of multiple NMR-active nuclei, and electromagnetic modeling for patient safety and design evaluation.

Dr. Rispoli taught the core biomedical engineering undergraduate course BME 305 Bioinstrumentation Circuit and Measurement Principles. He also developed and teaches the graduate-level course BME 555 / ECE 595 Magnetic Resonance Imaging Theory.
Christopher Greg Brinton

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