Open AccessDoctoral supervision and COVID-19: Autoethnographies from four faculty across three continents
Author(s) -
Dannelle D. Stevens,
Rajendra Chetty,
Tamara Bertrand Jones,
Addisalem Tebikew Yallew,
Kerryn ButlerHenderson
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of university teaching and learning practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.258
H-Index - 8
ISSN - 1449-9789
DOI - 10.53761/1.18.5.6
Subject(s) - autoethnography , pandemic , covid-19 , empathy , psychological resilience , pedagogy , higher education , sociology , medical education , faculty development , psychology , political science , professional development , social science , medicine , social psychology , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law
Doctoral students represent the fresh and creative intellectuals needed to address the many social, economic, political, health care, and education disparities that have been highlighted by the 2020 pandemic. Our work as doctoral student supervisors could not be more central nor vital than it was at the beginning of, during, and following the pandemic. Written during the pandemic of 2020, the purpose of this paper was to describe how four faculty from three continents navigated their relationships with doctoral students in the research and dissertation phase of their doctoral programs. Using a common set of prompts, four faculty members each wrote an autoethnography of our experience as doctoral student supervisors. Even though our basic advising philosophies and contexts were quite different, we learned about the possibility and power of resilience, empathy, and mentoring online. Our findings imply that new online practices could be closely examined and retained after the pandemic to expand the reach, depth and impact of doctoral education.