Doctoral students, professors and representatives from the Office of Equity, Diversity and Community Outreach came together late Monday afternoon for an open forum about doctoral students, their advisement and the responsibility of their mentors.The third and final of the Spring Faculty Enrichment Series, a trio of workshops hosted by the Office of Diversity, entitled “Preparing Diverse Scholars for Diverse Experiences: Mentoring Doctoral Students,” featured a panel of faculty. Katrice Albert, vice provost of the office, was among the attendees.”The doctoral process is so very important … especially as we use the graduate school to try to increase enrollment with doctoral students,” Albert said. “And we know that [the doctoral process] is the pipeline to the professorate to have a discussion about how you actually mentor graduate students.”The panelists discussed the differences between advisers and mentors, saying a fundamental difference is the level of interest mentors take in their students.Kelly Rusch, civil and environmental engineering professor, said mentors should vest a personal interest in their students.”If you’re an adviser, we tend to get very unifocus,” Rusch said. “You don’t see them as an individual … One size for mentoring does not fit all. You have to kind of take an interest in them a little bit.”The practice of mentoring doctoral students aids their future in the professional world, Albert said.”Mentoring is actually helping a graduate student become a professional,” Albert said. “I also think it was very important that the panelists strongly suggested learning the difference between simple advising and the nuances of mentoring.”Marco Barker, assistant to the vice provost of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Community Outreach, said working to retain doctoral students is a fundamental part of the progress of higher education.The faculty and administrators should come together to address issues of doctoral education and diversity in doctoral education, Barker said.”When we begin to start thinking about the future of higher education and where we see it going, we have to begin having conversations really … how do we engage existing students,” Barker said. “The problem is that we have trouble retaining diverse graduate students.”The first workshop of the enrichment series, entitled “The Power of Service-Learning in Teaching Social Justice,” was held during Martin Luther King, Jr., commemorative events Jan. 29.The workshop gave attendees an opportunity to learn from faculty members who have incorporated service-learning components into their curriculum. The second workshop, entitled “Stopping the Tenure Clock: Balancing Academy and Family,” occurred March 16. It was designed to inform tenure-track faculty how to balance their family and career.”We actually had more participation this year,” Barker said of the nearly tripled attendance over previous years. “We were really able to provide some good, hot topics … [on] mentoring doctoral students because there’s no other information on campus.”–Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]