Allison Kirkpatrick is a professor of astronomy at the University of Kansas. She studies supermassive black holes and their effect on galaxies. She chairs her department’s Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion committee, and she is a co-Director of the university-wide Multicultural Scholars Program.
When I joined the Physics & Astronomy Department at the University of Kansas in 2018, I gained one incoming graduate student before I even started my job! By the Spring, my group had grown to include another graduate student and four undergraduates. Although I love working with students, and won the Department’s Mentor of the Year award that first year, becoming an effective mentor came with a steep learning curve. I was never trained how to be an advisor. Most professors receive little training for many of the responsibilities of the job. In this post, I’d like to share what has worked for me to set clear expectations for my group members and how I work to establish a culture of collaboration.
After three years of missteps and figuring out the starting assumptions of many students, I codified my research expectations into a syllabus. Many groups have developed a research contract that is meant to succinctly lay out expectations for both the mentee and the mentor. I started with a research contract similar to the one put together by Viviana Acquaviva (CUNY). This research contract was what I used for the first three years of teaching. I tailored the expectations in the contract to each student based on their stage and career goals. However, I found that there were many things that weren’t in the contract that I was having to explain repeatedly, so I decided to write a more comprehensive research syllabus that could be given to all students.
When setting expectations, I find it helpful to think of myself as a manager. The website AskAManager has become my handbook for figuring out how to set and communicate clear and reasonable expectations. It also offers plenty of advice on how to view people new to the workforce. I have found it a helpful reminder that my students may not understand professional norms, and it is my job to teach them. If students are not explicitly taught professional norms, they may make their own costly missteps.
What are the essentials that I think students should know? It is important to set expectations of working hours for students. Graduate students are paid for 20 hours of work per week, whether on a teaching assistantship or a research assistantship, and I have found that many students do not think they need to work more than this. I explicitly spell out in the syllabus that graduate school is a full-time job. When students are still taking classes, I think 20 hours of research per week is the right number to aim for. After a student is finished with classes, they still need to be working the same hours as a full time job: 40 hours per week. Undergraduates similarly struggle with knowing how much research to do in a week. I’ve found that three hours is the minimum amount of time necessary to keep up momentum on their projects.
More importantly, what counts as work? I’ve learned the hard way that students (particularly undergrads) just don’t know. I pay undergrads by the hour over the summer, and they all ask me if they can count our astro coffee, where we discuss literature or group meetings, as work. Yes! In the syllabus, I make clear that “research work” includes reading papers, attending seminars, and answering email. I also tell students exactly how often they need to be checking their email and what is a reasonable response time.
I’ve attempted to make my research syllabus student-centered. This is not a top-down pronouncement of the exacting requirements every student must follow, that I made up, in order to achieve science knighthood. My research syllabus is meant to empower students by laying out clear, achievable expectations and respect for their well-being. I start with my mentoring philosophy, which states that I center student research and career goals while viewing students holistically. I spell out that I respect student vacation time and do not want them working during vacation time. I have had multiple students tell me nervously that they are taking vacation but they will still work every day. No! We as a culture need to do away with this mindset. I also make clear that I respect mental health, and that students should take time off for both mental and physical reasons. I let students know what they can expect of me and that it is their right to change advisors, and I expect the undergrads to apply for external REUs for the summer.
Finally, a key part of being a good manager is setting clear consequences. Consequences can be good and bad. I spell out what treatment group members who are meeting expectations can expect, and I let students know what it will look like if they are not meeting expectations. This will be tailored to the advisor, but it’s important to think through consequences and be upfront about them. Everyone, but especially students, will do better work when they get clear expectations, consequences, and feedback on their performance.
I hope that this document will inspire other advisors to think through their advising style and expectations. I especially hope it will inspire advisors to write those thoughts down for their students. My primary motivation as a professor is to make science more inclusive and welcoming for all students. We must make research accessible to all by doing away with unspoken rules and then punishing those who do not know how to play the game. Giving students reasonable expectations, holding them accountable, and teaching them professional norms is key to their success.
Have you developed a research syllabus or a set of written expectations for your research group? What did and didn’t work for you? Please discuss in the comments below.
