Your Relationship With Mentors: Notes From the Winners Circle

With thanks to the DFMA Committee

The Graduate Assembly this last year gave out its 4th annual Distinguished Faculty
Mentors Award, honoring Senate and Non-Senate members of the Berkeley faculty who
have shown an outstanding commitment to developing and supporting graduate student
researchers. These were individuals who had gone above and beyond the call of duty
with respect to helping graduate students become outstanding scholars.

Not every department apparently has mentors,however for those of you who do,it is
nice to see what is out there. Perhaps one day you too will be a mentor and you’d like
to know what people beside you really appreciate or what keeps them getting up and
going to work every day. So we went through some of the nominations that led to
wins to see what people were saying about folks here on campus.

“A mentor might be supportive in guidance of students’ academic achievement, but a great mentor inspires students to explore their own interests,to understand the benefit of discipline, to keep a good balance between school and personal life, and to devote to their own belief.“

“Significant amount of research labs have a set plan to follow, and new graduate students are incorporated into the plan. Their own interests often become blurry in transition, and their efforts are spent just for the degree. This has never happened.”

“Our lab is like a big family—we share the excitement of research achieving, and we share the glorious moment of everyone’s graduation including undergraduate students.”

“As a dedicated instructor,mentor,and advisor,he has always helped us in our efforts in academic achievement and in the larger professional world of scholarly publishing and research.“

“He has taught us the academic expectations of professionals in the field as well as the appropriate conduct necessary to working with academics outside of UC Berkeley in the kind of detail and care that goes well beyond the requirements of his job as an advisor and professor.His advice and guidance with course work and research has been consistently intelligent, thorough, helpful, and prompt, and he has been regularly available,even while away on sabbatical. In a profession in which generosity is not always a rule,this has been a characteristic of his dedication to his students.We know first hand that when he says students are his work,and not just the research all scholars engage in,it is a lived truth in his case.Considering the type of attention he devotes to his students as well as to his colleagues in the field,what is surprising is that on top of this,he has had time to write very influential books and articles that have marked important trends in the profession.“

“A careful and patient listener,he demonstrated a keen ability to divine constructive future steps.”

“…Very insightful about the complex relationships between people in different institutions
and their patterns of thought they bring to their work.Because of this he is able to help
students with a very wide range of research and career interests,providing both connec-
tions to different approaches and critical reflection on research methods.In addition he
understands that students come to graduate school with a very wide range of professional
goals,and he is able to both help them structure their program to meet those goals,as well
as to reflect on them and often to change them.”

“…Offers inspiration as well as support.His passion for justice and his passion for scholarship are inseparable;he has demonstrated in countless ways that there is no contradiction between engagement in social issues and uncompromising excellence in research. He does this without the pretense that scholarship does not embody values, but rather challenges his students and colleagues to be reflexive about the ways in which their values do influence research (and other people’s values influences their research,whether they admit it or not).”

“Though he is forever tempting us with new ideas,warning us of unforeseen difficulties, and
often seems to somehow know the direction our work will take before we do, he is also
clearly committed to cultivating our independence as scholars.”

“Guided by his experiences and challenged by his questions,we find ourselves wanting to strikeout in new directions or to look at old problems in a different light.“