Setting Expectations and Managing Conflict between Graduate Students and Faculty
The Graduate School at Michigan State University developed a workshop in the 1990s to train graduate students and faculty members on how to use an interest-based approach to set expectations jointly and manage conflicts germane to faculty-student interactions. Since 1996, these workshops have been offered regularly at MSU, and upon request by a variety of other institutions and national conferences. As a contribution to the Michigan AGEP Alliance, MSU opens this workshop to graduate students and faculty members from the four Alliance institutions and features the workshop at the multi-university Alliance conferences. A “train-the-trainer” variation of the program is also available, and plans are under discussion for offering it to faculty members and administrators from the other three institutions, and for using technology for wider dissemination of the program.
The workshop is based on the realization that one essential component of success in graduate education is that both faculty members and students bring a clear understanding of expectations to their interactions. The program first emphasizes the importance of identifying what is and is not negotiable in the context of higher education, and highlights the responsibility of the faculty to make those non-negotiable expectations explicit to students in a proactive fashion. The interest-based approach is then described, using introspection and empathy in identifying the interests of all the stakeholders. Interests are defined as needs that have to be met and values that must be respected by any action or decision. Interests that are often identified include research excellence, financial security, and collegial relationships.
Once negotiable expectations and the stakeholders’ interests are clearly identified, an important step is to reach an agreement about what the individual issues are and to represent each issue as a question that needs to be answered in order to set an expectation. In a research group, the issue/question may be “who is going to be included as an author of an anticipated article?” or “what is going to be the order of authorship for such a paper?” After the issues/questions are identified, the approach prescribes a brainstorming session to identify possible answers to each issue/question. This is done under two conditions:
- only one issue/question is considered at a time; and
- as answers to the issues/questions are generated, they are retained without evaluating them.
Once a substantive list of answers or options is at hand, a two-step evaluation strategy is implemented; only options that meet the demands of the particular issue and also serve at least one of the identified interests are kept as possible courses of action. This produces a list of options that are consistent with interests, without particular options being “owned” by particular individuals. By endorsing collaboration rather than competition, the interest-based approach protects the all-important quality of the relationship between the faculty and graduate students. It also diminishes the influence of a power differential as the determinant of a decision or course of action.
The program also encourages the use of the interest-based approach to manage conflicts that arise when expectations are not explicit or jointly set. Having the skills for collaborative, interest-based managing of conflicts protects individuals from adopting less effective strategies, such as avoidance (i.e., ignoring the conflict) or accommodation (i.e., giving in) or engaging in competitive or positional arguments that risk the survival of relationships and narrow the number of options, right from the start.
This is just one of the many programs developed at Michigan State University and supported by AGEP funding. For more information contact Debby Mitchell.
