As members of Catalysts for Science Policy, we recently examined 34 departmental handbooks from graduate programs in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine fields at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The goal of this policy analysis was to act as a case study, reviewing and analyzing current handbook policies to better understand their utility as a rapid and feasible first step in establishing a healthy environment for graduate students. We assessed the handbooks based on mentorship guidelines developed by Future of Research, evaluating their policies in several categories: mentoring; academic and nonacademic misconduct; transparent accountability; diversity, equity and inclusion; and graduate student representation in decision making.
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