Advising Students to the Ph.D.: Are We Equitable in Our Support?

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
September 15, 2008

A recent report published in Diverse: Issues In Higher Education states that Ph.D. completion varies by gender and race. Specifically, the 10-year completion rate for Whites was 55 percent, for Hispanics it was 51 percent, for Asian Americans it was 50 percent and for African Americans the rate was only 47 percent. Of course there are many factors that play a part in the lower completion rates for racial and ethnic minorities compared to their White counterparts. However, I’d like to focus on one of these factors: attention and support of one’s faculty advisor.

As a faculty member, every so often, I write down the name of all my doctoral advisees, noting the collaborations that I have with them or the introductions to opportunities that I have made for them. I do this to see if I am being equitable in my support of students. Sometimes as faculty, we tend to send all of the opportunities for scholarship, teaching, and professional service to one or two students. These students often “think like us” and are eager to do whatever we ask. But what about our other advisees? I think that as faculty we need to ask ourselves periodically if we are making connections with and for all of our students.

Are we passing on opportunities to teach and write to students of color? Are we collaborating on research projects with students of color? [To read the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/advising-students-to-the-phd-are-we-equitable-in-our-support/ ]