The UBC Guide to the Principles of Excellent Graduate Supervision
Supervising graduate students is a complex form of pedagogy, one made even more complicated by the changing nature of the university, the increasing diversity of our students, cross-disciplinary nature of academic research, and development of new knowledge. Within this evolving context, we are committed to supporting the highest quality graduate supervision practices consistent with our world-class research university.
While the vast majority (86%) of our graduate students are satisfied with their supervision at UBC (data from the 2022 Canadian Graduate and Professional Student Survey), surveys also reveal that many would like more consistent and meaningful interactions with their supervisors. Indeed, a healthy, productive supervisory relationship results not only in a successful academic program and outcomes, but also contributes to students’ wellbeing and to supervisors’ teaching and research excellence.
This guide offers a set of flexible, interrelated and research-informed principles that characterize high quality graduate student supervision. It is adapted from a set of pedagogical principles drawn from an in-depth scholarly review of the supervision literature initiated by the Graduate Supervision Leadership Group. This guide also reflects ongoing conversations about supervision pedagogies and practices with faculty and students across the university.
We offer these principles along with key qualities of supervision associated with each principle and suggested practices for enacting that principle. Throughout the document, we make visible a range of currently available UBC resources for supporting excellent graduate supervision.
We consider this a “living document” that will be revised and improved over time and welcome feedback in any form.
Principles of Graduate Supervision Pedagogy:
Teaching and Learning in the Graduate Supervisory Context
The following principles focus on the individual graduate student, the teaching and learning process, supervisor modeling and reflection, communication, and the importance of the scholarly community. Our intention is to provide a shared understanding of graduate supervision and to engender discussions focused on a renewed commitment to supporting excellent graduate supervision pedagogy and practices across the UBC Vancouver campus and beyond. All quotes are by current or former UBC graduate students, as offered through surveys, #GreatSupervisor week responses, and in nomination letters for Killam Awards for Excellence in Mentoring, except for the quote in Principle 7, which is from a faculty member.
The perspective guiding the development of the principles is:
Learning to be a scholar at the graduate level is a process of interactive, reciprocal, intellectual, and ethical dialogue. It is a process that involves engagement with a community or communities of scholars to support the development of professional judgment and learning to create, transform, and share knowledge.
There will necessarily be variations within and across units and disciplines, which are constantly evolving and shifting.
Ideally, the process of development as a scholar should engender lifelong learning and include various forms of commitment to the public good.
The Seven Principles
*The Principles of Supervision document was initiated during an International Faculty Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISoTL) leadership program (Hubball, Clark & Poole, 2010) that included a cohort of faculty members from across the UBC Vancouver campus. The cohort was supported by deans from a number of faculties as well as the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. This group, subsequently referred to as the Graduate Supervision Leadership Group, included additional faculty members, representatives from the GSS, the Ombuds Office and Wellbeing at UBC, and was funded in part by a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grant. The group was focused on improving graduate supervision. In addition to developing these principles, it planned seminars, developed new resources, and created new initiatives and policies to renew our commitment to excellent mentoring at the University of British Columbia.