[bioundgrd] Please fill out mentoring survey!

[Amy E Keating]

Hi everyone,

This is the closing week for the Biology Mentoring survey; link below.

We are still significantly​ below our numbers from the past two years, with only 150 responses so far. In previous years, we were close to 250. That leaves a lot of you unheard and limits our ability to obtain a broad, representative understanding of experiences in the department. I appreciate that everyone is busy and survey fatigue is real, but we truly appreciate your input, and I hope you will weigh in.

We are setting the Boba threshold at a minimum of 200 responses and will do the final count next Tuesday. Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey before the holiday weekend and encourage your lab members to do so. Then we can all sip bubbles in the sun together.

Thank you,
Amy


From: Amy E Keating <keating at mit.edu>
Date: Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 10:56 PM
To: biograds <biograds at mit.edu>; bioundgrd <bioundgrd at mit.edu>; biopdaf <biopdaf at mit.edu>; bio-srs <bio-srs at mit.edu>
Cc: biofac <biofac at mit.edu>
Subject: Please fill out mentoring survey!

Hi everyone,

Please fill out the mentoring survey, and encourage your lab members to do so as well:

https://mitresearch.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4ILSbRszMWfWCj4

Three years ago, we rolled out an annual survey to help us improve mentoring in the department. This was a recommendation of the ad hoc committee on mentoring (which included your representatives). We have shared the results with you each year, and the data have provided a valuable snapshot of lab experiences.

 Survey participation is VERY LOW this year (so far). We are far behind last year’s response rate.

We can’t track data if we don’t have data. Please take a few minutes from your busy day to provide input and help make our department stronger. You can find more information below.

Boba hangs in the balance!

Thanks very much,
Amy



From: Amy E Keating <keating at mit.edu>
Date: Friday, April 17, 2026 at 1:47 AM
To: biograds <biograds at mit.edu>; bioundgrd <bioundgrd at mit.edu>; biopdaf <biopdaf at mit.edu>; bio-srs <bio-srs at mit.edu>
Cc: biofac <biofac at mit.edu>
Subject: 2026 Bio Dept Mentoring Survey; please participate

Dear Biology graduate students, UROPs, post-docs, and other lab members (and apologies to those of you on these lists to whom this doesn’t apply!),
I write to request your participation in filling out an anonymous survey to evaluate and help improve mentorship in our department. This is the third year of this survey, and your participation will make a strong impact on our work to obtain data and information to shape our efforts and ongoing activities.

As described in the survey, for this third year, Institutional Research will provide anonymized lab-level information to me for labs where there are sufficient responses over three years to ensure anonymity. I do not plan to release this data publicly, but I will use the information to help support our efforts surrounding mentorship across our department.

The survey should take only 10-15 minutes to complete and is available at the following link:
https://mitresearch.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4ILSbRszMWfWCj4

Due to the survey layout, we recommend that you complete this on a computer, although it will also work on a phone.

The survey is based closely on the departmental mentoring competencies<https://biology.mit.edu/internal/mentoring-students-and-early-career-scientists/>, and it seeks input on your experiences and preferences for mentoring by your PI. We seek to capture and track the status of mentoring experiences so we can celebrate areas of success, identify areas that require attention, and direct our ongoing efforts to support mentoring relationships in a data-driven way. We can’t do this without your input.

Please submit your response by Monday, May 18th. To incentivize participation, if we obtain responses from 50% of lab members in Biology Department labs (like last year), we will arrange for a pop-up Boba tea event as a thank-you and community celebration.

Thank you in advance for sharing your views and experiences with us.

Best regards,
Amy

Link<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rd7Q4He6WzD9k263dCPR3iHVlZW88GdMNCq0Gv-iauA/edit?usp=sharing> to my DH office hours sign-up sheet

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