The Doctoral StudentOs Advisor and Mentor

Book excerpt: This book focuses on using faculty mentoring to empower doctoral students to successfully complete their doctoral studies. The book is a collection of mentoring chapters showcasing professors and dissertation advisors from the most prestigious universities in the United States. They provide an extraordinary range of mentoring advice that speaks directly to the doctoral student. Each chapter addresses a professional or personal component of the doctoral process that represents how these exceptional faculty best mentor their doctoral students. Faculty contributions exemplify diverse perspectives of mentoring: (a) Some faculty are direct and forthright, pointing the mentee toward his/her destination; (b) some faculty share personal experiences-offering mentoring advice from the perspective of someone who traveled a similar path; and (c) some faculty structure a dialogue between the faculty as mentor and you as the doctoral student. In all cases, they open possibilities for achieving success in doctoral studies. Students discover clues to follow during their doctoral journey. Whether the student is just beginning to think about entering a doctoral program, presently taking course studies, under stress, and doesn't know what the future offers, this is an ideal book because it maps the entire doctoral process.