Sometimes it has been great. Sometimes not. It has been almost always female faculty members (I’m not), and it has been difficult to discern a pattern. One might be from a good, not great regional school, and look at me when I ask if I might read some of her current work as if I have leprosy. (I don’t, at least not that bad.) Others, from good R-1 programs, have been at times the same, while still others and I have developed wonderful and productive relationships.

I can’t, as I said, discern a pattern. I went to a grad school (one of the good ‘uns) where the idea of mentoring was a priori laughable.

But it is a two-way street. After spending hours reading and typing up comments–critical and constructive–for one colleague, a “thank you” would have been nice. Instead, the colleague ignored the comments in toto, including a “howler” I spotted. You can lead a horse to water, . . . .

On the other hand, the “outside” member of my committee has done nothing but help me and my career. It was he who suggested that I go into admin after a particularly bad experience with a job position. He always introduced me to people at conferences, and included me and other grad students when he put together a funded conference that turned into a book. I met him by signing up for one of his classes and saying “hi, I’m F and we have xxx in common.” I was thinking, “I’m outside your dept but you have a good reputation and seem like a decent guy. I’m going to try to make this a real mentoring relationship.” My approach was to do what I could to shine: I worked incredibly hard in his classes, always spoke up (but only when I had something to say), and generally hung around.

So what’s my advice? Don’t give up. If you realize that the mentor you’ve set your sights on is an a$$, or isn’t going to help you, keep looking. And ask around. The other students can tell you if this person won’t like you or help you because you’re 1) female; 2) male; 3) outspoken; 4) foreign, or whatever.

One of the things that impresses me consistently about many of the truly outstanding senior scholars I know is that they’re open to learning from anyone–from junior scholars, grad students at other institutions, anyone. Hierarchy matters less than the ideas and information shared, whereas it seems to be those striving desperately to be *seen* as truly outstanding who are more obsessed with status and with hanging out only with those who are equally or more eminent.

I’ve added to this conversation over at my place.

While this doesn’t seem to be the dominant experience for Historiann’s readers, mine has been one in which it has consistently been difficult to find mentors/ professional networks (beyond pleasantries at conferences), no matter how good I am at introducing myself at conferences, or telling people how much I admire their work. (I’ve had endless trouble getting people to agree to read my work, or to write recommendations – even people I know, whom I know like me/ my work.) So I would also say to grad students and young faculty – it might take years and years. Also – Success breeds interest, which I think is unfortunate. But it is often true.

A friendly amendment: “Don’t just ask for help: expect help and try to make it happen.”

I’m by no means a Brilliant Grad (lacking both the brilliance and the rather striking forwardness), but I did recognize something of myself in him… something I do think has a lot to do with class (though in my case it’s coming from a moderate income – highly educated family) and a bit to do with age (I returned to work on my phd after several years of professing with my MA).

Anyway, what I wanted to point out is that there are ways to take that “don’t just ask, insist” advice without being quite as entitled as BG seems to have been and without wildly trespassing gendered expectations (at least, I hope I don’t come off horribly!).

Training ourselves to ask questions is probably the first step. I know that I, unwittingly, set what has become a useful tone in my relationship with my department when I asked if they would make a policy exception (about committee members) for me before I accepted their offer.

I also think just assuming that one’s relationship with faculty is a relationship among adults (rather than child/student – adult/faculty) goes a long way. That doesn’t mean assuming equality (faculty do have authority over grads, after all), it just means breaking with the patterns learned in undergrad.

err… i don’t want to get long, so I’ll stop… i just wanted to speak for the (hopefully) non-obnoxious but still assuming the right to get help approach to grad school