Michael Harvey and Richard Slatcher at the University of Georgia Fall 2023 Graduate Commencement
Mentorship in graduate school is a great way for students to advance both academically and personally. At our Fall 2023 Commencement, we heard from a student-faculty pair who exemplify strong graduate mentoring. Professor Richard Slatcher, the Gail M. Williamson Distinguished Professor in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences Program of the Department of Psychology at UGA, came to the University of Georgia from Wayne State University four years ago. Slatcher’s research and teaching have been primarily centered on examining how people’s intimate relationships influence their health and overall well-being through the lens of social psychology.
Slatcher has been Michael Harvey’s mentor since Harvey began his 6-year-long graduate school experience, beginning at Wayne State and transferring to UGA. He described their mentorship journey as having been an exciting one, and that he was sad for their time to come to an end upon Harvey’s graduation from UGA.
“Honestly, the single most important thing is finding an advisor that you obviously gel with professionally and also personally; I think it is such a big deal,” said Harvey. “I just feel so lucky and so blessed to have had an advisor that I got along with really well that was just an amazing mentor both personally and professionally.” The Graduate School offers our congratulations to Harvey and to all our recent graduates and their faculty mentors.
Beyond the supervisory relationships between faculty and graduate students, mentoring can take many other forms. Mentorship offers important personal and professional development benefits to graduate students, and graduate students may find themselves at various times serving as both mentors and mentees to others within their network.
The Graduate School encourages active involvement in mentoring relationships and suggests the following resources to help students enhance their mentorship skills: grad.uga.edu/development/academic/mentoring/students/
