New academics as supervisors: A steep learning curve with challenges, tensions and pleasures

Abstract

Perhaps in no other role do the three areas of academic work (teaching, research and service) come together as they do in the role of doctoral supervisor. Yet as vital as supervision is to the individual academic and student, to the discipline and to the institution, most academics receive no formal or systematic preparation for this complex role. This chapter reviews the small but growing literature about graduate supervision and then turns to a description of the experiences, from our research, of new academics doing the work of supervision and the tensions and challenges as well as pleasures they encounter. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.