HCT Ethical Considerations Discussion

Science and Engineering Ethics (2001) 7, 471-482
Mentoring: Some Ethical Considerations
Vivian Weil, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA
Keywords: mentor, advisor, role model, voluntary, ethical duty, collective responsibility,
department, research group, laxity, scarcity, transmission, ethical standards
ABSTRACT: To counter confusion about the term ?mentor?, and address concerns
about the scarcity of mentoring, I argue for an ?honorific? definition, according to
which a mentor is virtuous like a saint or hero. Given the unbounded commitment of
mentors, mentoring relationships must be voluntary. In contrast, the role of advisor
can be specified, mandated, and monitored. I argue that departments and research
groups have a moral responsibility to devise a system of roles and structures to meet
graduate students? and postdoctoral fellows? needs for information and advice.
INTRODUCTION
It is striking how frequently specialists on graduate science education claim that
mentors and mentoring are crucial to the success of graduate students in their studies
and in establishing careers in science. This claim is striking for two reasons. One is
that there is confusion about the use of the term ?mentor?. After reviewing the literature
of recent decades, two leading scholars of graduate science education, Judith Swazey
and Melissa Anderson, concluded that ?there is little consensus in the literature,
especially from field to field, about what a mentor is and what mentoring entails.? 1 (p.7)
The second reason is that there has been very little systematic investigation of
mentoring.1 (p. 5)
The terms ?mentor? and ?mentoring? seem to have gained currency in recent years,
in the period in which concern for misconduct in science has arisen. Indeed, many
contend that mentoring is crucial to the transmission of ethical standards governing
research, as well as to students? progress through their graduate studies and the early
years of career-building. It is not surprising, therefore, that much of the discussion of
mentoring dwells on the scarcity of mentors in science education and the consequent
threat to the transmission of ethical standards.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference sponsored by the National Science
Foundation on Mentoring and Research Values: Students as Vital Human Resources, Chicago, March 1995.
Address for correspondence: Dr. Vivian Weil, Director, Center for the Study of Ethics in the
Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, 3101 South Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60616-3793, USA;
[email protected] (email).
1353-3452 ? 2001 Opragen Publications, POB 54, Guildford GU1 2YF, UK. http://www.opragen.co.uk
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Some writers appear to believe that in the past there were healthy and robust
practices of mentoring.2 Perhaps, for some fields, their claims can be supported by
evidence that goes beyond individual recollections and anecdotes. However, in the
research for their essay on the state of our knowledge about mentoring, Swazey and
Anderson did not find a core of validated findings concerning mentoring. Instead, they
report that the literature offered a tangle of definitions that contributed to generating
confusion and conflict among ?descriptions, commentaries, and research-based
findings.? 1 (p. 5) Observers agree that ?there is a good deal of conflict and confusion
among graduate students about what they can and should expect from their mentors.?3
In view of the confused state of the discussion and the importance attributed to
mentoring, it is imperative to make clear what a mentor is and to assess the prospects
for reducing the scarcity of mentoring once we properly understand the term. That
assessment may suggest rethinking the management of graduate training, giving
emphasis to guidance and supports for graduate students that can and should be
institutionalized, and explicitly recognizing what can be left to the happenstance of
informal relationships.
DEFINING MENTORING
The first task is to clarify the definition of mentoring. For this purpose, it will be useful
to look back to the origin of the term in antiquity. It derives from a proper name in the
Odyssey, that of Odysseus?s trusted counselor, whose guise the goddess Athena
assumed when she took on the role of guardian and teacher of Odysseus?s son,
Telemachus. In the long absence of Odysseus, who had gone off to the Trojan war,
Telemachus would thus have the benefit of parent-like guidance. As unwelcome suitors
vying for Penelope, his mother, invaded his home and helped themselves to food and
drink, he would have need of a father-surrogate. To make his way in a dangerous world
as he grew older and embarked on adult enterprises, this young person would not be
left to his own devices.
It illuminates the use of the term ?mentor? in graduate science education to notice
that it traces back to a particular person and an intimate, personal relationship. Several
features of the relationship between Mentor and Telemachus deserve emphasis. First, it
is like the parent-child relationship; an older, experienced person provides guidance
and support to a younger, inexperienced person. Second, it is a long-term relationship,
resting on a strong personal commitment on the part of the mentor. Third, the person
mentored finds himself in an unfamiliar situation, fraught with obstacles and dangers.
Fourth is the part played by Athena, which adds an interesting complication. The
relevance of all these features will become evident in the discussion that follows.
Perhaps traceable to the ancient story, there is a popular notion of a mentor that
fleshes out a ?traditional? definition. It is the notion of ?someone who serves as a
career role model and who actively advises, guides, and promotes another?s career and
training.?4 According to this notion, the mentor is, first, an exemplar, a living
demonstration of how one pursues work in the field. By embodying the standards of
responsible conduct, the mentor transmits the ethics of the profession as well as other
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norms of practice. As a role model, the mentor does nothing additional. No special
activity on the part of the mentor is required, not even explaining to students what they
should notice and why they should emulate the behavior.
Some have assumed that providing a role model is all there is to mentoring. In
countering this view, Swazey and Anderson argue for distinguishing role models (and
advisors) from mentors.1(p.1) Their point is that merely presenting a model of
appropriate conduct is not adequate for transmitting appropriate norms and is not in
itself mentoring. Assuming that that there are clear and settled norms of responsible
conduct, the inexperienced person needs instruction to appreciate what they are, what
in the role model?s conduct should be emulated, and why. As a rule, the desire to
follow the model?s example does not arise merely from observation; other factors such
as an attachment to or relationship with the person contribute. Role models are
valuable, but mentoring includes much more than modeling appropriate conduct.
According to the traditional view, a mentor engages in various instructional
activities?including coaching at important junctures and offering criticism that
promotes learning?and in a range of nurturing activities that amount to ?giving
special protection?. A number of related titles come to mind: tutor, coach, advisor,
counselor, patron, sponsor, protector, guide, guardian, and parent-surrogate.a While
there is kinship and overlap among the activities indicated by these titles, specific
activities identified with particular titles allow differentiation, all under the umbrella of
mentoring. Sponsoring, for example, may be identified with helping mentees become
established in collegial networks of the scholarly community; whereas tutoring is
identified with teaching one-on-one or in small groups. All of these activities have as a
common characteristic that they contribute to advancing the careers of mentees.
All the activities of mentoring, but especially the nurturing activities, require
interacting with those mentored, and so to be a mentor is to be involved in a
relationship. The relationships are informal, fully voluntary for both members, but at
least initially and for sometime thereafter, characterized by great disparity of
experience and wisdom. Some writers also view the mentor as friend. However,
friendship is generally a reciprocal, symmetrical relationship. The idea of the mentor as
friend does not convey the ?taking under one?s wing? that is characteristic of the
mentor?s activities.b In situations where neophytes or apprentices are learning to ?play
the game?, mentors act on behalf of the interests of these less experienced, more
vulnerable parties. Although some activities of mentoring might be performed by
friends, to identify mentoring with friendship is misleading. The mentoring relationship
does not feature the symmetry of relationships between friends.
a.
In medical education, the terms ?docent? or ?preceptor? which mean teacher or instructor are
sometimes used interchangeably with mentor.1 (p. 7) They are used for teaching small groups or
one-on-one. Since, even in medical education, these terms are not terms generally used, they will
be ignored hereafter.
b.
Charles Fried develops a controversial notion of the lawyer/client relationship on the model of
friendship in his article, ?The Lawyer as Friend: The Moral Foundations of the Lawyer/Client
Relation.? 5
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On the traditional model, the mentoring relationship is usually thought of as
gradual, evolving, long-term, and involving personal closeness. Conveying technical
understanding and skills and encouraging investigative efforts, the mentor helps the
mentee move through the graduate program, providing feedback needed for reaching
milestones in a timely fashion. Mentors interpret the culture of the discipline to their
mentees, and help them identify good practices amid the complexities of the research
environment.
As the student progresses, the mentor?s sphere of concern for the student widens
beyond the graduate program to include external opportunities for the presentation of
work completed, opportunities for postdoctoral training, and, eventually, for a career
position. Mentors not only write letters of recommendation; they introduce mentees to
collegial networks, and help them establish footholds. They teach the mechanics of
obtaining funding, and they follow through as necessary to see to it that mentees learn
how to manage their careers. They even offer advice about important life choices like
family planning. Clearly, the relationship depends upon the personalities of the parties,
the ?chemistry? between them, the mentors? sense of the promise of mentees, and the
mentees? comfort with the mentors and appreciation of what the mentors offer.
While mentors advise, and some of their other activities overlap with or
supplement those of an advisor, mentors should not be confused with advisors.
Advising is a structured role in graduate education. Advisors are expected to perform
more formal and technical functions, such as providing information about the program
and degree requirements and periodic monitoring of advisees? progress. The advisor
may also have another structured role, that of research (dissertation) director, for
advisors are often principal investigators or laboratory directors for projects on which
advisees are working. In the role of research director, they ?may help students
formulate research projects and instruct them in technical aspects of their work such as
design, methodology, and the use of instrumentation.? 1 (p. 8) Students sometimes refer
to the research or laboratory director as ?boss?, conveying an employer/employee
relationship rather than a mentor/mentee relationship. It is easy to see that good
advising can become mentoring and, not surprisingly, advisors sometimes become
mentors. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish the institutionalized role of advisor
from the informal activities of a mentor.
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE TRADITIONAL DEFINITION:
HONORIFIC vs. NON-HONORIFIC
The positive features of a mentor?s activities and the implied virtues that characterize
mentors suggest a conceptual question about the definition. Does it make sense to
speak of bad mentoring, or is a mentor necessarily good in the way a hero or saint is
necessarily virtuous. If ?mentor? is an honorific term like ?saint? or ?hero?, it may be
used only for instances of successful mentoring. That seems to be the usage of many
academics when they look back on their experience of graduate study and their early
career years, and report they had no mentors. In the relationships they had with
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Mentoring: Some Ethical Considerations
members of their departments or other senior people, they appear to think that they did
not receive the dedicated coaching, support, and protection described above.
The honorific conception also fits the usage of those who lament the absence of
mentoring or speak of the disappearance of mentoring. Taking it that the defining
feature of mentoring in the traditional model is the unbounded, personal commitment
of mentors to the advancement of the careers of mentees, the honorific conception
accords with the acknowledged rarity of mentoring. Fortunate is the student who
receives the virtually unstinting support of a mentor; this is like the good luck of the
person in great danger who escapes, thanks to the efforts of a heroic rescuer. In light of
the foregoing considerations, the honorific interpretation is a good fit.
Yet puzzling questions arise. What should we say about a scientist who is a
dedicated supporter of a young investigator in an ongoing scheme of syphoning funds
from government grants? Another puzzle is generated by a literature, primarily in
nursing, that contains discussion of ?toxic mentors?.6 Writers identify a range of
?toxic? types. Included are 1) ?avoiders?, 2) ?dumpers?, 3) ?blockers?, and 4)
?destroyers or criticizers?.c
By making themselves unavailable to students, by dropping students into new roles
to ?sink or swim?, by obstructing with delays or other means, and by tearing down with
criticism, these ?mentors? can cause unnecessary pain and impede students? progress.
How is that literature to be accommodated? Is it based on self-contradiction?
One way to deal with these puzzles is to give up treating ?mentor? as an honorific
term and to ally it rather with such terms as ?parent? and ?friend?. Though the
connotations of these terms are generally positive, there are bad parents and ?fair
weather? friends; it makes sense to evaluate how people perform as parents or foster
parents and behave as friends. Given the welter of definitions of ?mentor?, there is no
consensus on this matter. That being so, it is important to review the reasons for
interpreting it as honorific or not.
On the one hand, as a non-honorific term, the verb can be used without
contradiction to refer, for example, to neglectful or destructive conduct or to coaching
inexperienced, upcoming scientists in unethical or illegal practices, such as the
subtleties of managing external funding in violation of rules. Making room for negative
evaluation seems to be the chief, if not the only, reason for the non-honorific
interpretation.
On the other hand, the honorific interpretation supports the notion that mentors
make a critical, positive difference to students? success and to the transmission of
ethical standards. So interpreted, the idea that it is rare, good fortune to have a mentor
makes sense, and the honorific interpretation provides clarity. That might settle the
matter in favor of the honorific interpretation, but puzzles remain to be dealt with.
To respond to the puzzle about teaching, advising, and counseling inexperienced
young scientists in unethical or illegal practices, we can say that such supportive
activities are qualified as unethical or illegal by the unethical or illegal character of the
c.
There are additional types of ?toxic mentors?, such as ?overprotectors?, would-be cloners, and
those who alter the playing field by changing the rules.7
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practices. The term ?mentor? would be used with quotation marks for a guide in those
circumstances, on the analogy with counterfeit ?money?. In answer to the puzzle about
?toxic mentors?, one can say that ?toxic mentor? is an oxymoron; misusing the word
?mentor? in this way is part of what makes it a rhetorically effective term. The implicit
irony makes it a striking phrase. Perhaps persons who exemplify these types, or
additional types that can be added to the original four, are advisors or research
directors, but they are not mentors. Opting for the honorific version, one does not
regard a destructive relationship or failure to engage in appropriate activities as poor or
inadequate mentoring. Rather, it is not mentoring. To define mentors in a way similar
to saints and heroes is to deny that there are bad mentors, and allow only ?would-be
mentors?, pseudo-mentors, and failures at mentoring. It is then redundant to use the
phrase ?good mentor?.
This clarification usefully brings some important features of mentoring into the
foreground. On the honorific interpretation, it is a distinctive feature of mentoring that
it is inherently voluntary. This means that mentoring cannot be mandated or assigned.
This feature arises from the kind and extent of personal commitment mentors make to
mentees. A teacher can be assigned a class or seminar and can be expected to cover
certain topics. Advisors can be created by assignment. While individuals can be
encouraged to perform as mentors, they cannot be required to make the commitment
that demands so much and depends to such an extent on who the parties are and how
they take to each other. Consequently, mentoring cannot be institutionalized. Even if
departments assume a collective responsibility for the guidance of graduate students,
they cannot insure that each student has a mentor in the honorific sense. This is an
important implication that will be taken up later.
A related distinctive feature of mentoring in the honorific sense is that it is not
subject to monitoring. The roles of teacher and advisor are reasonably well delineated,
limited, and public, allowing others to monitor and review performance. Mentoring, by
contrast, is not a structured role and does not have a delimited sphere of duties.
Moreover, mentoring generally brings mentor and mentee into a relatively intimate
relationship, not entirely public or available for observation. It is an ongoing
relationship rather than a process with structure and predictability. Because of these
features by which mentoring differs from teaching, administrating, and advising, it is
very difficult, if not impossible, to monitor. Therefore, it is not possible to initiate
formal review procedures, such as those for evaluating instructors, department chairs,
deans, or advisors. Others will have evidence that a particular mentor-mentee
relationship has been established, and colleagues may have to deal with the
consequences if a particular relationship goes off the track, but the ongoing relationship
is, for the most part, not open to oversight. This too is an implication to be addressed
later.
Acknowledging that mentoring is to a considerable degree a matter of luck, that it
is a delicate, personal relationship, is there any sense to offering practical, ethical
guidelines for promoting mentoring? In respect to initiating mentoring relationships
and to keeping them from going sour, there seems to be some wisdom for individuals.
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Many have pointed to the need for graduate students to step forward to initiate
relationships with senior investigators.8 Graduate students should not be diffident.
Rather, they should realize that it is up to them to approach appropriate senior people,
that the mentoring relationship is interactive, and, therefore, they must take an active
part in the ongoing relationship. At the outset of graduate study, students must come
forward and seek information and connections with faculty and senior investigators.
They need information about the terms as well as the content of graduate studies. They
make a serious mistake if they assume that graduate study is merely a continuation of
undergraduate studies and they understand ?how the game is played?. In addition, they
need an appreciation of the particularities of the specific programs they enter. All this
said, we have to ask how to insure that prospective and new graduate students are
aware that there are important questions they need to ask at the outset and connections
with senior scientists they must seek as they enter educational programs very different
from undergraduate science studies. I will return to this question in the next section.
If diffidence is a hazard for graduate students, perhaps a reciprocal hazard for
mentors is becoming overbearing, possessive, or controlling. However, circumstances
vary, and relationships can sour in a great variety of ways. So much depends on the
lived relationship itself and personal qualities of the parties to the relationship that it
does not appear fruitful to venture further with diagnoses of what leads to breakdown
of mentoring relationships.
A clear lesson that emerges from the understanding that the devotion of a mentor is
a precious gift, one that a student is lucky to receive, is that mentoring is too ?chancy?
a phenomenon, too much a matter of factors which cannot be predicted and controlled,
to be allowed to be critical to success in graduate study. It is dangerous for any
institution to rely heavily on luck, to count on the good deeds of saints and heroes. For
graduate programs, it is foolhardy to depend upon mentors? establishing long-term
relationships with students to transmit ethical standards and to give guidance critical
for students? success.
INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS: ATHENA?S INTERVENTION
It will be useful now to return to the story from antiquity in which Mentor figures.
Two of the noteworthy features with counterparts in graduate science education?
Mentor?s acting like a parent to Telemachus and his long-term personal commitment to
protect and advise Telemachus?have been considered in the previous discussion. The
other two relevant features have yet to be considered: one is the situation fraught with
peril to which Telemachus was abandoned; the other is the role played by Athena.
The difficult passage that Telemachus faced after his father departed has a
counterpart, of course, in the perilous journey of graduate study. Consider that graduate
students make their way in highly competitive circumstances where often enough ?the
winner takes all?. Constituting as it does a passage to the privileges and duties of
demanding, esteemed professional positions, graduate study in science is rarely without
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peril.d Unlike Telemachus, graduate students must cope with risks and uncertainties
that arise in large part from conventions and arrangements devised within institutions.
Because procedures and requirements in institutions are modifiable, there is a prospect
for making changes that reduce uncertainty and mitigate dangers.
Some may raise objections to initiating changes. They may say that these research
institutions are sound and represent settled wisdom with which it is dangerous to
tinker. They may object that only those who can pass through severe perils and testing
merit the prize of the degree and a respected career. They may ask, ?Why should new
generations of graduate students be spared the difficulties and uncertainties with which
we coped?? Or, they may argue, ?We do not know enough about what changes will
bring genuine improvements to justify undertaking significant modifications.?
To answer the first objection, we should note that if there is settled wisdom that has
served in the past, it must be reviewed as circumstances change. Even generally sound
institutions come to face legitimate demands that may be met only by making some
institutional modification. The demand to assure the transmission of ethical standards
governing research is surely legitimate. The frequent complaints about the scarcity of
mentoring indicate the need for changes. The comments below by Carl Djerassi, a
distinguished professor of chemistry and member of the National Academy of
Sciences, forcefully state the case for change.
In 1987, as a member of the National Academy of Sciences? Institute of
Medicine?s Committee for the Study on the Responsible Conduct of research, I
chaired the panel on education and training for research?During the 12
months of our deliberations I could not help but reflect on my past
performance as a mentor?I was particularly struck by the ad hoc manner in
which many senior professors (including me) in the top chemistry research
departments deal with the mentoring issue. Young faculty members get
absolutely no formal guidance?More important, I was struck by the total
absence (at least in those elite institutions with which I am familiar) of any
formal mechanism for evaluating the mentor?s performance.10
Modifying institutional practices is not free of risk, but when the transmission of
appropriate standards is at stake, the risk seems acceptable.
In answer to the second objection, reducing uncertainty and risk will not transform
graduate study into a smooth passage. It will remain a dangerous journey with a hardwon prize at the end because success requires a combination of intelligence, focus,
tenacity, and stamina that are uncommon. It is not easy to predict who will be
successful. That being so, it makes sense to remove unnecessary obstacles that have
been identified, even if earlier generations were not spared.
Finally, over the last decade, teaching and research about responsible conduct in
science has produced understanding and growing agreement about modifications that
are needed. For instance, the need to arrange for regular, frequent, and effective
communication in research groups is widely acknowledged. Case studies have made
vivid the destructive misunderstandings that arise when such arrangements are lacking.
d.
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Taft H. Broome has written eloquently about the dangers and uncertainties of this passage in an
article titled ?The Heroic Mentorship?.9
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Models for improving communication in research and graduate training are available.
There is agreement also about the need in research groups to monitor the progress of
graduate students, as measured by milestones clearly announced, and to provide
feedback on progress. It is also well understood that research groups need ground rules
for assigning authorship, awarding recognition, and for recording, safeguarding,
sharing, and reporting data. Making the ground rules explicit will cause changes in the
atmosphere in research communities. Some claim that a loss of spontaneity and
informality will result. Others answer that making these matters explicit will lead to
less tension because favoritism and arbitrariness will be reduced. In any case, the
benefits of predictability, openness, and fairness, with more assured transmission of
ethical standards and a safer passage for graduate students, seem worth the risks of a
change in atmosphere.
A counterpart to Athena?s intervention has a place in graduate science education.
Recall that she devised an arrangement for providing support to Telemachus when he
faced circumstances fraught with peril. In graduate education, collective action by
departments and research and laboratory groups can provide the counterpart to divine
intervention. The first step is to assume collective responsibility for determining the
needs of graduate students. The next step is to devise arrangements to meet the needs
that have been identified. Instead of counting on individuals to step forward on their
own to form relationships with individual students that somehow meet a set of needs
that have not been well articulated, departments and research groups can guarantee that
certain needs they have explicitly recognized are met. The need to articulate and
explain ethical standards must be among them.
Graduate students reasonably expect departments and research groups to take
responsibility in this way. In her investigation of graduate study in science, Judith
Swazey asked graduate students to compare the role that a department should take in
transmitting ethical standards in research to the role actually taken by the department.
Eighty-two percent of students felt the department should take an ?active? or ?very
active? role in transmitting ethical standards, while only 22% felt the department
actually took an ?active? or ?very active? role.3, 11
Fortunately, the perceptions of faculty who were surveyed in Swazey?s study were
much like those of the students. Ninety nine percent of 2000 faculty members
canvassed believed that ?academics should exercise collective responsibility for the
professional conduct of their graduate students?. Only 27% of these faculty believed
that they actually exercised this responsibility.3,11 This finding suggests that the
situation is ripe for the collective action suggested here.
Inertia may be part of the problem. We can view the current situation as reflecting
a failure to specify obligations of the department or research group toward graduate
students and a failure to distribute fairly to members of the department or to the group
the corresponding tasks to fulfill the obligations. When the situation is left
indeterminate?with individual members free to decide how much effort they will put
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forth for graduate students, even within the role of advisor?laxity results.e It may be
that individual members have a sense that they should be doing more for their graduate
students, but members? preoccupation with their own interests or a sense of loyalty to a
group not attuned to ethical responsibility may get in the way of doing more.
Furthermore, there is risk of a serious lack of coordination when members are left to
act individually, according to their own judgment or preferences.12 (p. 32) Coordination
makes it possible to be efficient, at least to the extent of avoiding gaps and
redundancies.
These considerations offer compelling reasons for assuming collective
responsibility for providing for the needs of graduate students. Instead of continuing to
lament the interference from pressures to acquire funding and stay ahead of or keep up
with the competition, members of departments and research groups can devise plans to
share equitably in a collective effort to train graduate students. That response would
also address another common problem: individuals needing assurance that others will
do their fair share.12 Often people need the confidence that they will not be taken
advantage of, putting forth efforts (e.g. for graduate students) when others are not
doing their share. In situations of intense competition, it is reasonable to be afraid that
others will interpret their duties in a narrow, self-serving way.
One can argue that research groups and departments have an ethical duty to
develop collective action strategies. Alan Buchanan urges that there is a fundamental
ethical principle of common sense that acting responsibly requires doing what we can
to improve the chances of acting respon