Transitions and Turning Points in Faculty-Student Research Relationships

There is an old nursery rhyme about a little girl: When she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid. Collaborative relationships between faculty members and doctoral students can also be very good or they can be—not so good. When good, they enrich the scholarly life enormously, enhancing the intellectual growth of both faculty and students. When they are bad, they can consume a great deal of time and emotional energy, sometimes even leaving psychological residue that clouds future relationships. In this chapter, we describe high points—and low points—in our collaborations. We try to make explicit the lessons we have … read more