Adjusting Expectations: The Impact of 2020 Campus Closures on Advisors’ Approaches to Graduate Student Mentorship

The spring 2020 campus closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic may have posed particular challenges related to the mentorship of science graduate students. In this study, science faculty mentors from one U.S. university report on potential delays to degree completion and their expectations of their mentees during this time. Nearly half of the faculty advisors surveyed expected their graduate student mentees to experience delayed time to graduation. Respondents also described making an effort to support their mentees through providing encouragement and identifying research-related goals students could complete remotely. One-fourth of respondents stated that they were not altering their expectations for their mentees. The respondents who did report having altered expectations varied between altering their immediate expectations and changing their overall expectations for degree completion. These findings relate not only to the immediate impact on graduate mentees, but also to the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on graduate education in the United States.