We treat our students ethically and respectfully. 
We recognize that the adviser-advisee relationship has a power imbalance. It is our responsibility to ensure that we navigate that power imbalance appropriately.

We communicate clearly and effectively with our students. 
As faculty, our words carry weight. We set clear expectations with our students, both for them and ourselves, and we stick to them. We make space for our advisees to disagree with us, and we tolerate constructive conflict with them. At all times, we communicate professionally and respectfully.

We credit and promote our students. 
Our students challenge and inspire us. We ensure that they are properly credited on all collaborative work, and that we are transparent about the assignment of both authorship and intellectual property. We promote their work internally and externally, such as by making professional introductions and helping raise their public profile. Where personal financial benefit may result from our work with students, we disclose it and take appropriate steps to ensure fairness.

We set appropriate boundaries on work. 
While research is important, it should not be the only thing in our students’ lives. We help our students protect time for rest, vacations, health and personal matters. We respect the privacy of students’ off-work hours and personal lives. During extraordinary circumstances, whether a global pandemic or a personal crisis, we help our students contribute as they can and ensure that they get the support they need.

We act with integrity in our research and in our professional relationships.
We understand that research must be done ethically, both for real and lasting value and to build our own careers and reputations.

We communicate clearly and effectively with our advisers.
We work with our advisers to set clear expectations, for them and for ourselves. We stick to these expectations whenever we can, and communicate proactively when we need more support or are unable to reach these goals. We make space for our advisers to disagree with us, feel free to disagree with them, and welcome constructive and intellectual conflict with them. At all times, we communicate professionally and respectfully. 

We uphold a high standard of ethical conduct.
We work to learn about the ethics of our work, both the ethics of research practices and the broader ethical implications of our work in the world. The former includes properly crediting the work of others. The latter includes consideration of how our research and results will affect people, from our community to the world.

We set appropriate boundaries on work.
While research is important, it should not be the only thing in our lives or the lives of our collaborators. We take time off for rest, vacations, health and personal matters. We communicate with our advisers and collaborators about our plans, goals and constraints in advance, and plan early enough to support the constraints of others.

We support our students intellectually and practically. 
Our students need time, focus and resources to do their best work. It is our job to provide the help they need.

We protect time for each of our students. 
As advisers, our time and attention is critical to students’ success. We meet with them regularly to guide their research and we provide timely feedback on projects. If we go on leave, we arrange for our students to receive appropriate time and attention from a colleague.

We provide the necessary resources for students’ work. 
Students should not be expected to fund necessary research expenses (e.g., cloud computing, equipment, or human subjects payments) using their personal finances, as a requirement to complete their PhD. If a faculty advisor believes that a given expense is necessary for PhD completion, that expense should be covered either directly or via a reimbursement to the student. However, if the necessary funds are not available for a given research activity, the student and advisor should work together to develop a plan for research and funding that does not require relying on the student's personal finances.

We prepare our students for successful careers. 
To the best of our ability, we help our students achieve their dreams, whether that be in academia, industry, public service or elsewhere. We move them toward a timely graduation and prepare them for the current job market. We support them in developing both research excellence and excellence in people, presentation and organizational skills. 

We strive to become excellent, effective researchers.
The Ph.D. program will give us intellectual independence and skill at conducting research. Our advisers’ responsibility is to provide training, coaching and mentoring; ours is to engage in active learning and take advantage of the resources available to us.

We commit to becoming experts in our discipline. 
We recognize that learning takes time, and that excellent work often means taking risks. We treat every research project not only as a chance to conduct research, but also as a learning opportunity. For example, we ask questions when we don’t understand instead of trying to seem more knowledgeable than we are. When projects are harder than we expected — or do not go as we had hoped — we build our tolerance for difficulty and we seek help to improve or modify the situation and goals. 

We take responsibility for our own learning.
We familiarize ourselves with the resources available to us, such as classes, reading groups, tutoring and people in the community. We ensure that we meet all program requirements. We are honest with both ourselves and our advisers about our strengths and weaknesses. We tell our advisers what resources we need to succeed, and we ask for help when we need it.

We seek out feedback and we use it wisely.
We solicit feedback on our work from our advisers and from others in our research community. We reflect on this feedback honestly, even when we disagree with it. We use the feedback we receive, along with our best judgment and the advice of trusted mentors, to improve our performance as researchers and advisees.

We ensure that all students have access to high-quality advising. 
Finding the right adviser-advisee match is a highly individualized process. We work to ensure that all students have a healthy advising relationship. 

We learn about the barriers our students face. 
Some of our students face challenges related to historic injustice and/or contemporary bias. It is our responsibility to learn about those challenges and to put that knowledge into practice as advisers. That includes finding appropriate resources on campus to share with students, as well as examining our own behavior and biases.

We meet students where they are. 
Our students join us with different skills and strengths. We get to know each individual student’s needs so we can be effective mentors and teachers. We help articulate tacit knowledge about how to succeed in academia for our students, and we never shame our students for what they don’t yet know. 

We help our students build communities of scholarship and support. 
None of us succeeds alone, and advising is not a one-person job. We help our students build professional networks within our school, university, region and field. If we are not the right partners for a student, we help them find a better advising fit or bring in co-advisers. We also provide advice and mentorship to students who are not our advisees. 

We work for the common good of our research community.
No researcher succeeds entirely alone. Even as graduate student researchers, our community contributions matter. We might advise undergraduate students, review for relevant conferences or organize professional events. In these roles, we act for the good of the community.

We take the pragmatics of research seriously.
Excellent researchers need interpersonal, communication and project management skills. When our advisers and others mentor us on these skills, we take it as seriously as we do their technical, research or design advice. We take advantage of opportunities to explore different professional trajectories and we tell our advisers what we hope for from our careers so they can prepare us effectively.

We contribute to our research communities. 
We are active participants in the research community at and beyond CMU. We strive to support other students and colleagues in our common and individual goals and improve our community.

We are good mentors.
We help others as we’ve been helped. Just as we learn from more experienced students and from our peers, we provide mentorship to the next generation of researchers. We access resources for becoming better mentors, and treat our advisees as we’d like to be treated. 

We own our mistakes and always strive to do better. 
No one does the right thing all the time. When we make mistakes, we do our best to set them right, and we always strive to do better. We strive for continual professional improvement.

We seek out feedback. 
We solicit student feedback and examine other sources of data to know how we can improve our advising. We express gratitude for honest feedback and do not penalize students for sharing their experiences. We reflect on this feedback honestly and with the goal of improving our performance as advisers. 

We correct our mistakes. 
When we make mistakes, we apologize. We listen to the person that we have harmed to understand what that person needs. We then follow up with action, such as repairing any harm that we caused and changing our behavior in the future. 

We help each other improve. 
When other faculty need our help in advising situations, we back them up. We give our peers advice about difficult situations, share techniques we have learned, and refer them to relevant, research-backed resources. When we see our peers making a mistake, we intervene to help them adhere to our community standards and best practices. 

We strive for continual professional improvement. 
We do our best to continue to learn new skills and methods to advance our professional development.

We own our mistakes and always strive to do better.
We recognize that we will make mistakes, often informed by the supportive feedback of others. We strive to correct those mistakes, and apologize when appropriate. We work to help others in our community improve, providing advice from our own situations and experience. 

We represent our labs and CMU to the world.
We understand our behavior and work products represent our labs, colleagues and CMU to others in the academic community and beyond. We credit their work and contributions along with our own. We demonstrate the high standards of the community when we interact with those outside it.

We create a welcoming, inclusive and principled environment.
We uplift those around us, in particular those more vulnerable than we are. We hold ourselves and others accountable for breaking our community standards, and seek to create systems and support that protect and improve the wellbeing of our community.