The continued impact of Thesis Mentoring

By Dr Elaine Gourlay, Research Culture Specialist for Communities and Collegiality

My experience of thesis mentoring

A question I ask myself regularly these days is “Where would I be now if I hadn’t had a mentor?”. I honestly don’t know.

I was offered a mentor in the final stages of my doctorate. It was at a time when I was perpetually attempting to finish my lab work and would start writing my thesis ‘in two weeks’ time’. I was approached by my mentor with this offer of help, when I had spent a full six months saying I would start writing ‘in two weeks’ – I was clearly stuck, not knowing how to transition into the writing phase.

My mentor worked with me to break down that divide of working in the lab vs writing. I was able to start putting together a clearer plan for my thesis and, as I started to see it take shape, I realised how much work I had done and how it would be ‘enough’ for a thesis. We worked on time management and planning and before I knew it, my confidence towards my thesis had built to a point where I felt I could stop generating data and start generating word count! I managed to see things in perspective and was able to look further out on the horizon beyond my doctorate.

Not only did having a mentor help me to coordinate my thesis writing, but the style of the mentoring conversation also helped me learn a lot more about myself. Having someone question the ‘whys’ of how you feel about something, why you are keen to act on one task and procrastinate on another helped me to realise how I worked best, and when I worked best. I have taken this knowledge with me throughout my career. I realised my biggest motivation was my desire to help others, and this is something that has driven my career direction ever since, including bringing me to my current role, which, among other things, involves facilitating mentoring programmes at UofG.

The UofG Thesis Mentoring Programme

I was lucky to have been approached by my mentor while I was writing my thesis but now, to broaden the benefits of this kind of work, the UofG Research Culture Team runs the Thesis Mentoring programme twice each year.

The principle of the Thesis Mentoring programme is to hold mentoring discussions that are focused on the PGR’s relationship with writing, or more specifically their relationship with their thesis, and to create a space for self-reflection and self-understanding. We outline clearly in the induction materials that this mentoring relationship is not a space to receive feedback on methods, analysis, literature or any other element of the content of the thesis, nor to receive proof-reading services. Instead, it encourages thesis writers to develop good writing habits, understand which approaches work for them and to help them get into a rhythm with their writing.

Since it started in 2021, the UofG Thesis Mentoring programme has supported 240 PGR thesis writers as mentees and has accrued a pool of 148 experienced post-doc Thesis Mentors (read more about the benefits to mentor careers and to universities wishing to support good supervisor development here). The programme grows cycle-on-cycle, and in the latest round, we were overwhelmed by the number of mentees who signed up and have already created a waiting list for the January – May 2023 tranche.

Enhancing the programme

In the first six months in my post as the Research Culture Specialist for Communities & Collegiality, I have taken leadership the Thesis Mentoring Programme. I have seen the programme go through a complete cycle and I have just initiated the next one which has given me ideas for future developments. The programme continues to thrive, but through conversations with Thesis Mentors, I am introducing some changes that will work to enhance the programme.

Additional matching criteria

Previously, the programme has aimed to match mentees with a mentor within their College at UofG but in a different School – offering a shared understanding of research paradigm but reducing the temptation for conversations to focus on the research itself, by matching beyond their direct research area. This helps the partnerships focus on the relationship with writing, but it also offers greater clarity of the difference between the role of a mentor and the role of a supervisor. We encourage mentees to see their mentor as an additional relationship, adding an extra viewpoint, another sounding board, or even as one more supporter who can cheer them on when needed. Having a mentor from another discipline helps reduce potential conflict there may be between how the role of the mentor vs the role of the supervisor is perceived and ensure that mentees don’t see their mentor as a substitute supervisor.

However, feedback from mentors who have had multiple mentees and mentored those within and outwith their own college, has indicated that it is the cross-College interdisciplinary mentoring relationships that have been able to focus much more on the approach to writing and steered clear of subject-specific discussion. The benefits of interdisciplinary mentoring are not only limited to the mentoring conversation and relationship, it can also be transformational in terms of personal and professional development as it offers an entirely different perspective for both mentee and mentor. Recognising that interdisciplinary mentoring might not appeal to everyone however, the facility for mentors and mentees to indicate a preference for a cross-School match, or a cross-College match, has been incorporated as an option in the current round of the programme.

As the introduction of interdisciplinary mentoring increases the distance between areas of expertise, it can often become more important to find common ground between mentor and mentee. Therefore, another enhancement that has been brought into the current programme attempts to create mentoring partnerships between individuals who have shared life experiences, for example studying for a doctorate overseas, or later in life, or whilst also having caring commitments. This addition aims to recognise that facing these circumstances can impact on and present specific challenges to thesis writers, and providing a mentor who can speak from a perspective of shared personal experience offers a mentee more than just lip service.

Where next for Thesis Mentoring?

Thesis Mentor community: There is a now wealth of mentoring experience and developed practice out there in our UofG community, and now feels like a good time to connect the mentors together, to share their wisdom and their observations with one another. Therefore, I am pleased to be making plans for the creation of an online UofG Thesis Mentor Community that I am looking forward to seeing become a thriving and engaged community of practice.

Reflective blog post series: I am excited to report that we will soon be kicking off a new blog series centred around reflections on the mentorship experience, from both the mentor and mentee perspectives. In the Research Culture and Researcher Development Team, we are keen to develop a series of articles that share knowledge and resources gained through mentorships as well as reflecting on the impact that mentoring has had on the lives and careers of our mentors and mentees.

Pride in our mentors

The impact of having had a mentor at the juncture of writing my doctoral thesis has weaved a constant thread through everything I do. My thesis mentor is one of the heroes in my life, and I now have the pleasure of seeing heroes all around me at UofG: our volunteer mentors who give their time and insights so generously to help others. At the end of each cycle of the Thesis Mentoring programme, we invite mentees to name their mentor in the Thesis Mentor Hall of Fame and I am so honoured to be able to share in the stories of how these mentors impacted the lives of their mentees, especially since it reminds me regularly of the impact my mentors have had on me.