Supervising doctoral students
Workshop series from Fall 2024 to Spring 2025
In a series of five sessions starting in Fall 2024 and ending in May 2025, Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Full Professors as well as Senior Lecturers at HSG can gain knowledge, acquire skills and new tools, and reflect on their role as supervisors. The series is designed to facilitate peer learning and to expose faculty members to new ideas and challenges. Participants will benefit most from the workshop series when they bring their own experiences and questions to the floor.
The series is part of HSG’s faculty development programme and kicks off with a conversation with Prof. Dame Sarah Springman, Principal of St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford and former Rector of ETH Zurich.
Duration: Each session will last 1.5 hours. It is possible to attend individual sessions. Participants are encouraged to attend all sessions.
Target group: Assistant, Associate and Full Professors as well as Senior Lecturers who (will) supervise doctoral students.
Registration: For a productive and focused learning environment, spaces in this workshop series are limited to 15 participants and allocated on a first come, first served basis. Please register via Forms. The Faculty Development Team is available to answer any questions you might have or to receive your feedback: fd@unisg.ch.
The following program may be subject to change.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025, 15.00-16.30, location tba
Many PhD students experience high levels of work-related stress, which can negatively influence their capacity to perform and quality of life and potentially trigger psychological symptoms. Indeed, the prevalence of clinically significant levels of depression among PhD students is more than twice as high as in the general population, with a staggering 25% affected at any given time.
For PhD supervisors, who often find themselves on the front line of PhD student support, this poses several questions: "How can I best support PhD students so they can maintain a high quality of life and capacity to perform?", "When PhD students are struggling, how can I offer support while maintaining professional boundaries?", "What kind of communication is useful during phases of crisis?" and "What signs of struggle should I take seriously and how do I react appropriately?" This interactive workshop will use case examples to illustrate best practices and offer a communicative framework for PhD students.
Facilitator: Dr. Florian Schulz, Psychological Counselling Services of the University of St.Gallen
Monday, April 7, 2025, 15.00-16:30, location tba
In this session, we introduce a set of documents that may be useful as guides for supervisors and doctoral students in different phases of the doctorate. Participants will be provided with these documents before the session. We will then discuss how to use documents and guidelines. In mock conversations, participants will be able to test individual guidelines.
The aim of the session is for participants to have a digital folder of guidelines that they have tested (and maybe adapted) and that they will be able to use with their doctoral students.
Facilitators: Prof. Dr. Monika Kurath, Dr. Susanne Tönsmann, tba
Monday, May 5, 2025, 16.00-17.30, location tba
In this closing session, we take stock of the issues that were discussed during the series. After looking back, we look forward: How can the supervision of doctoral students contribute to fostering a healthy research culture at HSG?
Facilitators: Prof. Dr. Monika Kurath, Dr. Susanne Tönsmann, tba