Actually, you assume two roles as a major professor. And while these roles overlap, the current research on mentoring separates them to help us all understand the complexity of this endeavor (Davidson & Foster-Johnson, 2001; de Valero, 2001; Jacobi, 1991). The required role is that of advisor. In this role, you assume the responsibility to help students satisfy requirements for a degree and obtain credentials for their future careers. This is a critical role because you need to understand the university and departmental requirements for degree completion. You also need to understand the requirements of your discipline and the job market to ensure that your students will be prepared for the careers they seek. In many ways, this is the more technical role of a major professor.

The second role is that of mentor. Borrowing from the Council of Graduate Schools (1995), “mentors are advisors, people with career experience willing to share their knowledge; supporters, people who give emotional and moral encouragement; tutors, people who give specific feedback on one’s performance; sponsors, sources of information about and aid in obtaining opportunities; models, of identity, of the kind of person one should be to be an academic.

When the ideal is realized, mentoring is a comprehensive effort directed toward helping a protégé develop the attitudes and behaviors (skills) of self-reliance and accountability within a defined environment” (p. 1).

While you may be saying that the advisor’s role is subsumed in the mentor’s role, there are times when this is not the case. There will be times that as the advisor, you may need to be a “broker” for your advisee, facilitating a mentoring relationship between your advisee and another faculty member. That is, you may still be the right person in the advisor’s role, but due to a specific student need (say, related to a research project), it would serve your advisee’s best interests if s/he worked with another faculty member for a period of time who may provide tutoring, modeling, or sponsorship that you just cannot do. As you step back and think about it, this not only helps you not have to be all things to all students, but also models academic collegiality and collaboration.

As you read through the following sections, you may wonder which suggestions are for advisors and which are for mentors. Well, that is difficult to separate. As you move from the technical to the interpersonal dimensions of the role, there are no clear distinctions that hold true for all major professor-advisee relationships. You may be in more of an advisor’s role one day in one situation, and move to a mentor’s role as the situation changes. Know that we all struggle with this complexity, yet it is one of the most important facets of our academic lives.

Getting started
Learning to be a good major professor begins in your own graduate program. Being a good observer of your own major professor at work in the advising and mentoring role, as well as watching other professors working with your colleagues, is a good strategy to develop your own “list” of successful ways of working with advisees. Ask your major professor about his/her own experiences and the ideals and principles that guide his/her practice. And, while you will be busy trying to be successful in your own role as a graduate student, switch perspectives. Try to imagine yourself in your major professor’s place across the range of experiences that happen in a graduate student’s matriculation through a program. Keeping a journal of ideas is a very good way to provide yourself with a concrete product that you can take with you to your new position and future service as a major professor.

Once you are in your new position, your department may have a protocol for inducting you into the role of a major professor. You may even want to ask about this in the interview process. Many departments here at Virginia Tech require all new faculty to serve as non-voting members on both master’s and doctoral students’ committees until they have observed all of the stages of the graduate program process. You may even be lucky enough to be assigned a mentor (i.e., veteran, tenured faculty member) who will guide you through this process. If you do not have a formally assigned mentor, seek out a faculty member who is well known for exemplary work as a major professor. If possible, talk with as many faculty members as you can so that you can learn the advising expectations, as well as the ways that successful mentoring can occur in your departmental and university context. A final suggestion is to agree to be a co-advisor with a colleague whom you admire. This relationship will afford you a real “hands-on” apprenticeship as a major professor. The bottom line is to learn from the best! Everyone – students, faculty, and administrators – benefits from you becoming the best major professor possible.

Formal major professor responsibilities
OK, now you’re a major professor. What are some of the standard activities that you will be doing? Here are just a few. Specific suggestions are offered with each activity.

1. First meeting: Once you have been assigned a graduate student, you should invite your advisee for a first meeting. Ask the student his/her goals for graduate school and beyond. Have the student identify his/her strengths and weaknesses, and work style. Share your work style and expectations. Make sure the student knows your own strengths and weaknesses. Share the range your work interests and responsibilities so that the student knows who you are and your needs and time demands. By laying this out on the table at the very beginning, both the advisee and you can begin the working relationship in an open and professional manner. If modifications to advisee work habits, etc. need to be changed to facilitate success, get started on these changes right from the beginning. This open conversation will also help you both begin to balance the needs of this new relationship and journey.

2. Program of study: As a major professor, you are instrumental in helping your advisee craft a program of study that best prepares the student for his/her career goals. Based on the advisee’s experiences, competence, and goals, you will need to suggest an appropriate sequence of coursework, independent studies, field experiences, research projects, assistantship projects, etc. Balancing these program activities and requisite benchmark exams (e.g., qualifying exams, preliminary exams, thesis/dissertation proposals, etc.) is a science and art! Here is where you will keenly see the individualistic nature of each advisor-advisee experience. Of course, there are some foundational courses and activities that must begin a program, but you will need to help the student schedule simultaneous tasks, especially those that are dictated by research or project opportunities or when courses are offered. One of the major things that you need to keep in mind is time-to-degree completion. This varies per individual needs and program requirements, and needs to be a necessary topic of discussion and on-going reassessment (Shambaugh, 2000).

3. Advisory committee: As a major professor, you will need to help your advisee craft the most constructive advisory committee for his/her program. Advisory committee members should be kept abreast of the student’s progress. While your advisee and you should meet regularly for ongoing assessment of progress, the actual update back to the committee (perhaps via electronic mail copied back to you) should be the advisee’s responsibility. As the student moves toward research prospectus and dissertation, the committee membership may need to be re-assessed to ensure that all members will be able to contribute to the final project. Above all, the members should maintain a helpful stance, and be willing to bow out of committee membership if their participation is no longer needed or if conflicts arise that are counterproductive to positive working relationships. Once the project moves forward, frequent updates from the student will be helpful to keep the committee connected with the project and available if needed.

4. Grants and research projects: Grants and research projects are expected components of many graduate programs at Virginia Tech. You may have a research program in progress in which your advisees are automatically involved. Being able to participate in the intellectual and socio-cultural experience of sponsored programs is essential for our graduate students. Even better is for the students to be involved in the actual preparation of grant proposals. By directly involving them in the literature review, methodology development, and evaluation plan, they will be better prepared for their own prospectus and dissertation work. This may also be the time that you serve as a broker for your advisee and connect him/her with other projects. There may be features of other projects that will round out the student’s program, whether it be methodology or just the experience of working with the principal investigator. Networking for future career contacts may be the goal.

5. Teaching: Many of our graduate students are employed in teaching assistantships or would like to develop their pedagogical skills. And, many never teach here, but become employed in teaching positions once they graduate. A requisite part of a total graduate program should be some preparation in teaching. Here, again, you’re not alone. Of course, helping your advisee develop an effective teaching philosophy and repertoire is highly desirable. You may even have your advisee co-teach classes with you. Or, you may connect your advisee with another faculty member to co-teach or just observe and consult. Here at Virginia Tech (and like many colleges and universities), we have the Center for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (CEUT) – a university-sponsored center for the improvement of teaching. Graduate students are welcomed to all (CEUT) workshops and seminars. In fact, there is a graduate seminar entitled Preparation for Teaching that is open to students from all departments that addresses common teaching issues such as planning, assessment, student development, and so forth.

6. Outreach: One of the missions of a land-grant university is outreach, engagement with the people in the field. Virginia Tech prides itself on “putting knowledge to work.” Our advisees should have the opportunity to join us as we work with our partners in the field. Whether with corporate alliances, public service organizations, schools, or through Cooperative Extension, we help our advisees enrich their programs by seeing how our work fulfills the land-grant mission and helps our constituents. Moreover, the students are able to again network and build connections that may pay off after graduation.

7. Professional conferences: Whenever possible, a major professor should help advisees attend, and better yet – present at, regional and national conferences. Preparation of conference proposals provides another opportunity for advisees to engage in the work of an academic. These experiences often serve as testing grounds for project ideas and the competition for recognition and validation. Having a proposal accepted is a great first step in helping our advisees become legitimate participants in academe (see Lave & Wenger, 1991 for a discussion of how newcomers enter communities of practice). And, as with grants and research projects, advisees have another chance for networking.

8. Authorship: Joint publication of good work is a goal of our work with graduate students. The authorship issue, however, is one that is often fraught with concern and, sometimes, hard feelings. The criteria for authorship need to be clearly established at the beginning of the collaboration. If specific roles are assigned, order of authorship should be commensurate with the complexity of the role. The student should be the senior author on papers written from the thesis or dissertation project. As the major professor, you will need to ensure your advisee receives fair recognition for participation and/or leadership in projects for publication.

9. Thesis/dissertation project: Development, implementation, and evaluation of the thesis or dissertation project are central components of your role. Throughout the student’s program, the two of you should engage in several conversations about possible topics for research. While in some disciplines, topics are already selected by virtue of sponsored projects or ongoing research, other disciplines may afford students more latitude in topic selection. If the latter case applies in your situation, then development of a timeline and scheduling of on-going conversations will facilitate steady progress. Your active involvement and co-participation will result in a process and a project that is mutually satisfying.

10. Career counseling: One benefit of a constructive relationship between a major professor and advisee is the ability for both of you to engage in frequent conversations about future academic career possibilities. This will facilitate the need to modify the advisee’s program or experiences, as well as inform you about the best type of networking needed for the individual case. A number of ways to help advisees network for academic careers have already been mentioned. But what happens when plans change? While we may want all of our advisees to follow in our footsteps, that is just not realistic. The research shows that many graduate students come to their programs without clearly understanding the complexity of academic life (Golde & Dore, 2001). It is a major professor’s responsibility to be sensitive to goal modifications and best assist the advisee in seeking other options.

Other suggestions: In addition to the above activities, major professors often initiate or engage advisees in informal activities. Brown-bag lunches, informal small-group conversations about research, discussions about the administrative structure of universities and colleges, study groups, morning coffee support groups, and so forth are represent opportunities for the development of true mentoring relationships.Above all, treat advisees with respect. Acknowledge the skill and experience that they bring with them to graduate school. Listen. Pay attention. Have a system for remembering conversations and meetings. Tell advisees what you learn from them. Help them to find creative solutions to problems. And, when you cannot be the one to help, help them find the resources they need to be successful.

Closing comments and additional resources
As you can see, becoming a major professor is a complex and dynamic endeavor. To be really good at it, you need to constantly be in a learning mode. This stance will keep you in synch with your advisees, as well as institutional and disciplinary changes – and enthusiastic about academic life. In addition to your colleagues, there are many resources that will help you on this journey. Along with the works cited in the above discussion, this bibliography identifies other helpful resources.

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