The supervisory relationship is the beating heart of graduate research pedagogy: a partnership that will shape a graduate student’s academic trajectory, the research they undertake and the knowledge they produce, their future career prospects and their lived experience of graduate school.
The right supervisor can make all the difference to a struggling master’s or doctoral candidate – providing guidance, inspiration, clear expectations, encouragement and support – while a poor supervisory fit can leave students feeling discouraged and neglected, and supervisors frustrated and conflicted.
What makes for the right supervisor? Supervision as pedagogy is difficult to articulate in general terms because it is relational. The shape of any given supervisory relationship (what makes it productive or stifling, expansive or restricting) depends on the interplay between individual student and supervisor involved – as well as the research project to which both are devoted, the disciplinary norms and scholarly conversations scaffolding that project and the broader context in which their joint work takes place (whether that context is primarily scholarly, creative, oriented towards industry or to public service).
At the same time, there are core values that constitute any healthy supervisory relationship: shared curiousity, mutual respect, understanding, reciprocity, clear expectations on both sides and a commitment to meet them, where and whenever possible.
Conversations about good supervision must be contextual and caring: attentive to the needs and capacities of individual teachers and students, the demands of particular research methodologies and critical frameworks, the possibilities of new practices and processes – while always remaining mindful of both student and supervisor as whole, very human, people in a given social and material context.
Because supervision is a relational pedagogy, good supervision is always characterized by care. A good supervisor cares for her supervisee as both a researcher and a student, and shepherds the project that student undertakes as both new knowledge and as a meaningful milestone in the student’s own trajectory. Teacher, collaborator, project manager, exemplar, advisor – and sometimes counsellor: a good supervisor will find themself wearing many hats.
Given these nuances, all of us engaged in graduate supervision can learn a lot from exemplars like those spotlighted in this issue of Innovatus: experienced researchers who have dedicated themselves to the success and flourishing of their supervisees, employing strategies and frameworks that have proven successful – and that they themselves would have liked to receive.
Physicist Wendy Taylor, for example, demonstrates that a strong and long-standing commitment to equity and inclusion in the lab and classroom can lead to extraordinary opportunities for a new generation of scholars. Taylor focuses first on careful, nurturing guidance: training in key skills, regular group and individual meetings, clear expectations and timelines, and an emphasis on work-life balance.
Laura Levin’s supervisory style emerges in the tension between two poles – whether it’s the theoretical and practice-based elements of theatre and performance studies, the radical energy of being a “disciplinary misfit” vs. the need to build platforms and systems with space and structures to contain that energy, or the call to respond to her students’ particular interests while urging them to seek new frameworks and juxtapositions, broadening and deepening their horizons.
For philosopher Kristin Andrews – working within a discipline so famously isolated that René Descartes could start by wondering if the external world even existed – her goal as a supervisor is always to create an ethos of teamwork and a sense of community. Andrews achieves this through a variety of practices familiar in the sciences and new to philosophy: regular group and one-on-one meetings, collaboration through co-presentation and co-authoring, and full participation in hands-on research.
Supervisors themselves benefit from collaboration, conversation, and community – all of which can be hard to find. Tracy Bhoola and Faculty of Graduate Studies Associate Dean Cheryl Van Daalen-Smith aim to change that, with the Graduate Supervision Support Hub, a pan-University initiative that emerged out of extensive consultation and community outreach. The GSSHub will be launching a toolkit for graduate supervision later this year, and it has already hosted the first Canada-wide conference on graduate supervision in 2024.
The Faculty of Graduate Studies represents the largest body of researchers at York University, and graduate supervision remains the primary pedagogical tool through which the next generation of creative and innovative researchers are trained. Continuing to explore the nature and possibilities of this profoundly important pedagogical relationship is an exciting and crucial aspect of supporting York’s researchers, both students and faculty.
Alice MacLachlan
Vice-Provost and Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies
In this issue:
Grad students thrive from human-centred supervision in science
With weekly check-ins, global collaborations, and a focus on balance, Professor Wendy Taylor is redefining what it means to mentor graduate students in high-stakes science.
Philosophy in practice: building a collaborative grad student experience
Inspired by her own academic journey, York Universisty Professor Kristin Andrews is creating a more connected, collaborative, and caring path for philosophy students pursing graduate studies.
Professor blends art, activism and academia in mentorship approach
Whether unravelling military uniforms or staging cross-cultural salons, Professor Laura Levin’s graduate students learn to challenge systems and build coalitions through performance.
Support hub for grad studies empowers student, faculty
Backed by a three-year Academic Innovation Fund grant, the Graduate Supervision Support Hub is building a national model for supportive, skillful and collaborative graduate supervision.