2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper examines how engineering faculty’s prior supervision experiences shaped their current supervisory practices. In particular, we examine ways that some faculty replicate positive mentoring models while others intentionally counter poor experiences by fostering a more caring environment. Faculty supervision plays a vital role in engineering education; it goes beyond academic progress and research productivity, impacting student well-being, professional identity formation, and readiness for careers post graduation. Despite its centrality to engineering doctoral education, there is no standard training on how to be a doctoral supervisor. Faculty often learn this informally either through observation, trial and error, or through the models they experienced as students. As a result, supervisory practices are passed down across generations, sometimes reproducing inequitable or exclusionary patterns of advising, while in other cases inspiring transformative, student-centered approaches. When faculty serve as models for future mentors, they hold the power to either perpetuate toxic academic practices or resist them. Thus, understanding how engineering faculty interpret and transform their own advising histories is essential to advancing doctoral education and fostering cultures of care and inclusion in engineering.

We conducted 24 semi-structured interviews with Associate and Full Professors in the College of Engineering at a large R1 university. These participants represent a wide range of engineering subfields. Crucially, their tenured status positioned them as potential models for future doctoral supervisors. Interviews explored faculty reflections on different aspects of supervision. In this WIP, we focus specifically on the subset of questions related to faculty members' prior experiences as doctoral students, and how those informed their current supervisory approaches. The ongoing inductive interview coding focuses on identifying the types of positive and poor supervising experiences. Preliminary findings highlight the value of communication, well-being, and professional development in supervisory relationships. Future work involves identifying the mechanisms through which faculty replicate or counter these experiences in their current supervisory practices. Our research will contribute to the broader field of engineering education by providing new insights into how past mentoring experiences shape supervisory practices and, ultimately, how faculty cultures of care and inclusion can be fostered within engineering doctoral education.