EE Divisional Faculty Lunch 10/18/2010
EEGSA Presentation by Neel Shah & Matt Spencer: “Solution Driven EEGSA Dialogue”
Question 1- A student is intimidated by their advisor, how should they give them feedback or find a new better advising situation?
Faculty responses:
- Student “self-calibration” – check with other trusted people to determine if the source of intimidation issue lies more with the advisor or with the student
- If with student, student should communicate about shyness to advisor
- Some thought that learning to deal with intimidation could be a useful skill for graduate students
- Dual advising (like MIT) – Should the academic advisors be assigned by the dept. or self-assigned by the student? The department is already seriously considering this option.
- Ombudsman – The department already has a ombudsman in place that students can utilize if they are having trouble with their advisors.
- Prevention of Issue – Care should be taken to ensure that the advisor/student match is a good one from the get go. This will go a long way towards preventing majors problems.
- Students should ask other grad students in lab about the research mentor’s advising style. Should an online tool be developed (accessible to students only) with student information/advice on every advisor?
- Exit survey: faculty advisor feedback from this is not funneled back to faculty because in many cases, they could too easily identify the student. Is there a way for aggregated statistics to be given back to the faculty? What can we do for advisors that just don’t have that many students?
- Rotations may be a way for students to “try out” advisors in a structured way, but we might need to consider changing our funding model.
- Faculty training on how to be a mentor should be considered. However, the faculty may not respond well to mandatory training.
EEGSA Response:
- Dual faculty advising model
Question 2 – What kind of informal feedback mechanisms from students to advisors would be useful?
Faculty Responses:
- Develop anonymous feedback form. This could be problematic because faculty may be too easily able to identify the feedback giver.
- Review Form. We should check to see how often students use the annual review form to provide faculty feedback (as it was designed to do). EEGSA should participate in revision of feedback form
- Talk to GSAO (Dana). She can be a mechanism to funnel the feedback back to the department and possibly the advisor. She can also help students strategize about what might be the best way to approach a faculty member
- Advisors can ask for regular feedback directly. Inviting direct feedback may encourage students to give it. Also, advisors can set the tone of the advising relationship to encourage open communication and feedback. From Elad: “We are equals here.”
- Advisors can help by acknowledging cultural barriers to communication. Some advisors would like exit surveys to be available to them to encourage self-improvement.*Students should remember that most faculty do really want this feedback.
EEGSA Responses:
- Anonymous digital forum for feedback
- Refresh annual student review forms
Question 3 – What do you think are the major stressors for graduate students that lead to poor mental health and what are some of the potential solutions?
Stressors:
- Intimidating faculty – advisor/student relationships
- Extracurriculur commitments – work/life balance, some grads are married and have families
- Money – high cost of living in the bay area, grad school can be a challenge financially especially to students with families to support. GSI supplement issues.
- Male/female ratio may make dept. an unwelcoming place for women
- Peer/Internal pressure – “impostor syndrome”. Our students are all used to being the top student, but not everyone can be at the top here.
Possible Solutions:
- Make steps for GSI supplementation transparent, straightforward, and automatic if possible
- Develop a more social culture within the department. More casual interaction between students/faculty. For example, Edward Lee changed the location of his office and now has much more day-to-day interaction with his students.
- Having a 2nd faculty advisor (academic advisor) may help students work out the research advisor/student relationship
EEGSA Responses:
- Students want open access policies, public places to work. Are dissatisfied with limited access spaces.
- Normative time to degree is long…and longer than at peer institutions. This could be a significant stressor