Mentors, as defined by The Council of Graduate Schools, are:

Advisors, people with career experience willing to share their knowledge; supporters, people who give emotional and moral encouragement; tutors, people who give specific feedback on one’s performance; masters, in the sense of employers to whom one is apprenticed; sponsors, sources of information about, and aid in obtaining opportunities; models of identity, of the kind of person one should be to be an academic1. More succinctly, effective mentoring must be built on a commitment to providing every student with individual access to professional, collegial and supportive guidance throughout their enrollment in a graduate program at UC Berkeley. The university’s rules and regulations govern many issues relating to the relationship between mentors and students. In addition, many of the functions that mentors often voluntarily provide are in fact the responsibility of the appropriate unit, such as the student’s department or school. Our goal is to supplement these rules and responsibilities, and to provide campus units, faculty, and staff with guidelines for effective mentoring, and to offer a framework for discussing mentoring among themselves and with students. This document is based on our own faculty experiences at Berkeley, as well as and informed by relate