Conflict Resolution for Graduate Students

Articles

"How to be a Good Graduate Student," by Marie desJardins

Provides information about why someone would want to go to graduate school and how to conduct graduate research. Most important in this article are the tips about how to pick a graduate adviser, how to get along with your graduate adviser and how to get feedback from your graduate adviser about your thesis/research.

"Mentor and Graduate Student Strategies for Success," by the University of Louisville Graduate School

Sets out the responsibilities of the faculty mentor (provide a positive role model, evaluate student progress, help students to develop professional writing and oral communication, value diversity) and the graduate student (keep in touch with mentor, contribute knowledge, seek advice from others). The site also provides a list of formal academic experiences that the mentor and student should seek out together (i.e., presentation at seminars).

University of Missouri Guidelines for Good Practice in Graduate Education

Outlines expectations for graduate students and their advisers in order to enhance graduate education. Grad students should conduct themselves in a professional manner, exercise integrity in research and examinations and maintain confidentiality of the adviser. Faculty advisers will evaluate the work of the grad student, prevent professional rivalries for the grad student and acknowledge the contributions of the grad student.

Web sites

Program for Excellence in Teaching, University of Missouri

Provides graduate teaching assistants with information about college teaching seminars on campus and the Teach Net list serve. The site also provides information about PET consultation and video tape services to aid in TA teaching and instruction.

Books

Bartlett, A., & Mercer, G. (2001). Postgraduate Research Supervision: Transforming (R)Elations. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Roughly 50 contributors have written stories or thoughts on the relationships between postgraduate research candidates and their supervisors. Essentially, there are numerous different adviser-advisee scenarios described in this book.

Wergin, J. (2003). Departments that Work: Building and sustaining cultures of excellence in academic programs. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Co.

This book is particularly useful to those graduate students who will be working in academia. Wergin provides ideas about how to enrich the quality of a department through engagement, values and motivation.