Rights and Responsibilities
While you as a postdoctoral scholar are responsible for your career trajectory and success, it is reasonable to expect Stanford faculty members to provide on-going mentoring, guidance, and resources, in both scientific and career development, to support you toward your goals. In principle, Mentors should initiate those conversations and discuss research direction and progress and career goals. However, often advisors are not accustomed to such discussions and get caught up in other priorities. It is then important that you request those conversations, as it is your future that is impacted negatively by an absence of mentoring and positively by proactive feedback and advice.
Remember that a postdoc is a training period. To get the best training is it critical that you be dedicated to the scientific goals of your project and also that you exhibit and continue to develop independent thinking, identification of key questions, and strategies to answer these questions in the immediate and longer term.
To ensure that good mentoring and feedback happen, in addition to the regular scientific discussions, you should ensure that you have, with your advisor, (1) an initial meeting at the start of the postdoc appointment; (2) annual meeting(s) to discuss progress; and (3) an exit interview at the conclusion of your postdoc. These meetings should be one-on-one, not as part of larger meetings. Many have found the following meeting objectives and timelines to be very useful:
Initial meeting: A formal discussion within the first four weeks of the postdoc appointment. Meeting Goal: career-orientation, objectives, research project definition, and appraisal of needed skills.
Annual progress meeting: A formal discussion at the anniversary of your appointment or, if easier, closely following the New Year. You should have analogous and complementary meetings with secondary mentors or other faculty mentors. In some instances it may be useful for them to attend in one larger meeting. In addition, some departments have yearly committee meetings for postdocs. While not yet standard, this appears to be a great way to get broad and diverse feedback on progress and objective, both short and long term. Meeting Goal: progress is evaluated and goals are set for the following year.
Exit interview: A formal discussion at the end of your appointment. Meeting Goal: address future research trajectories; differentiation strategies if you are pursuing the same lines of research as the PI; and possible opportunities or plans for collaboration or future mentoring.
All faculty have received the following, although one aspect of academic freedom is that different advisors will have different perspectives on the specifics of these and other guidelines:
While postdoctoral scholars are responsible for their career trajectory and success, Stanford faculty members are expected to initiate and provide on-going mentoring, guidance, and resources, in both scientific and career development, to support their postdocs towards their goals successfully. Mentors/PIs should initiate those conversations and discuss research direction and progress and career goals. Postdocs are encouraged to request those conversations if they are not otherwise taking place.
Responsibilities of Faculty Mentors
A faculty mentor inviting a Postdoctoral Scholar to Stanford works with that individual to develop a plan of research and goals for the period of training. The faculty member approves this plan, and during the term of the appointment ensures adequate office/laboratory space. In addition, members of the Stanford faculty are expected to:
- Encourage postdocs to seek secondary mentors who could provide them with opportunities in new areas of research, foster collaboration and offer them with guidance and support to assist with their career goals
- Seek the participation of these secondary mentors or multiple other faculty members in the annual progress reviews with their postdocs
- Encourage postdocs to participate in career development activities (workshops, courses, pre-conference events), recognizing that the short postdoc training period means seeking such information early in the training period.
- Encourage postdocs to engage in social networking opportunities, such as attendance of talks and seminars in the department or University-wide
Responsibilities of Postdoctoral Scholar
Postdoctoral Scholars are expected to follow through carry out the study or research outlined in discussions with the faculty sponsor, to communicate regularly with the faculty sponsor, and to notify the faculty sponsor of any change in plans. The Scholar is not expected to handle administrative duties or to be on a dissertation reading committee for any graduate student.
To facilitate the postdoc mentoring process, postdoctoral scholars and their faculty mentors (PIs) are expected to hold at least 3 formal meetings that one-on-one conversations that are not part of larger research team meetings:
- an initial meeting at the start of the postdoc appointment: A formal discussion within the first 4 weeks of the postdoc appointment, with the goal of understanding career-orientation, setting short-term objectives, defining research project responsibilities, and appraising existing knowledge and skills and the need of new knowledge and skills.
- Annual meeting(s) to discuss progress, preferably a formal discussion after the New Year. Secondary mentors or other faculty mentors are also encouraged to attend. The goal of this meeting is to review progress, evaluate prior set plans and accomplishments, and determine goals for the following year.
- Exit interview at the conclusion of the appointment: A formal discussion upon resignation or end of appointment, where it would be an opportunity to address future research trajectories; differentiation strategies if the postdoc is pursuing the same lines of research as the faculty mentors; and possible opportunities or plans for collaboration.