As a graduate faculty member, the relationships you have with your graduate students are critical to their success at Iowa State. The Graduate College wants to help ensure that you and any graduate students you supervise share the same expectations about academic goals, communication, assistantships, and more.
Student & Major Professor Checklist
Positive working relationships with faculty, particularly major professors, are vital to graduate student success. The Graduate College encourages students and major professor(s) and/or assistantship supervisor(s) to discuss the following topics. It’s ideal to discuss these topics as early as possible, but later is better than never. If a student hasn’t yet identified their major professor, discussing these topics with the professors they are considering may help them make the best choice. Above all, you and your major professor should concur that you will communicate frequently, professionally, and respectfully about your work together.
Graduate students and major professors, have a common understanding of:
- The student’s current degree objective, and any additional degrees that might follow
- The length of time that earning the degree should take
- The need for prerequisite courses that may not count toward the degree
- Skills or competencies the student should acquire within a certain amount of time
- The office space and equipment, including computers, provided to the student
- The student’s part-time vs. full-time status, and whether it is acceptable to hold outside employment while pursuing the degree
- The way(s) we will provide feedback to each other about performance
- The frequency and style of our meetings, including those with the full Program of Study Committee
- The extent to which the major professor can offer mentoring on matters other than the student’s scholarship (e.g., career development)
- Any additional unwritten expectations for the student, including presence in a lab/ studio/ department, seminar attendance, participation in campus organizations, etc.
- The policy that theses, dissertations, and creative components are made publicly available immediately upon degree completion, which may affect the choice of topic for these documents
- The need for open communication about potential barriers to the student’s progress (including physical/ mental health, family issues, and department/lab climate), and about resources to manage these barriers
- The need for respect and professionalism at all times, including if one of us wants to end the student/major professor relationship
Professional scholars mutually benefit from collaboration by:
- Whose intellectual property any data collected by the student will be
- The criteria we will use to determine the right of authorship on articles and grants, as well as the ordering of authors
- The minimal number of scholarly outputs (journal articles, manuscripts, exhibitions, artistic creations, etc.) that need to be completed in conjunction with the degree
- Acceptable venues for research outputs (such as specific journals where manuscripts should be submitted)
- Timeframes we can expect from each other for providing and returning documents to be edited
Graduate assistant (research, teaching or administrative) and assistantship supervisor, we agree on:
- The duties associated with the appointment, and what type of appointment it is (half-time, full-time, etc.)
- The duration of the appointment, and the likelihood that it will be renewed
- Any specific hours during the week to be devoted to the assistantship
- Whether research assistantship duties overlap with research for the student’s thesis/dissertation
- Grounds for potential termination of the appointment, and the process that would be used (amount of notice given, etc.)
- The need for equity, fairness, and a workplace free of harassment, bullying, discrimination, and disrespect