Sink or Swim: The Mentoring Experiences of Latinx PhD Students With Faculty of Color

This phenomenological study examines the positive and adverse experiences full-time Latinx PhD students have in mentoring relationships with faculty of Color at a historically white Research-Intensive University in the Southwest, United States. These scholars are an essential group that faces distinct challenges in graduate education and remain underrepresented, with only 7.2% of all doctorate degrees obtained and constituting merely 4% of all faculty. Faculty mentoring requires a degree of care and commitment rather than a casual or “strictly business” approach, especially for racially minoritized students. Findings reveal the need for faculty mentors to humanize and validate their advisees’ individual experiences and goals while simultaneously incorporating the holistic person their doctoral students enter with at their respective academic programs. Recommendations are shared for institutional agents at all levels.