Recognizing outstanding mentors: Attend the Outstanding Faculty Mentors Awards
Mentorship is one of the most important indicators of student success.
Faculty are more than just academic advisors, committee chairs, or course instructors, they also become mentors who can help you navigate the triumphs and challenges of graduate programs and guide your scholarly development. A strong mentoring relationship between a faculty member and a student can be a career-driven professional relationship, or it can be the simple act of regular check-ins that help ease stress and uncertainty. Preferably it’s both.
However the relationship develops, mentorship is one of the most essential tools to student success. It can oftentimes make the strongest difference in a student’s professional, academic and personal life.
The Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards is an annual recognition ceremony for ASU’s student-nominated mentors. What started as a tradition at the Graduate College in 1987 is still an anticipated signature event for ASU’s graduate faculty.
“Mentorship is highly recognized and valued in academia, especially at ASU, as evident in the increase in nominations we see each year,” said Jennifer Cason director of graduate student support programs at the Graduate College. “Our annual celebration and recognition of outstanding faculty mentors provide a public venue to acknowledge and recognize the multiple roles faculty play as educators, companions, guidance counselors and career advisors.”
The 2018-19 award winners will be recognized on January 30, 2019. The ceremony allows mentors to see the impact they have made on their students, and perhaps, for the first time, realize their efforts to sustain and foster relationships are appreciated. “I think faculty members don’t always know how impactful they are on students’ lives until they are at an award ceremony and current or former students are there and they find out those students nominated them,” said Zachary Reeves-Blurton, program manager for graduate student professional development and coordinator of the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards.
Bringing together academic navigation, career guidance and genuine interest in what makes a person tick, mentorship is one of the most instrumental relationships a student can foster during their education.
“Through these awards we are recognizing faculty mentors that take a much more holistic approach to the mentoring relationship, to the personal, to the career and to the long term,” said Reeves-Blurton. “An exceptional candidate for this award would really push their graduate students and expose them to opportunities that foster their professional development both academically and in terms of career preparatory work such as co-publication credit or presentation at academic conferences.”
Historically limited to faculty chairing or serving on doctoral committees, the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards now recognizes all levels of faculty, including tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track clinical and instructional faculty and postdoctoral advisors.
Nominations are evaluated based on mentoring excellence, fostering of inclusive collaborative academic environments and commitment to professional development and career advancement. In addition to the initial nomination, nominees undergo several rounds of review that include written testimonials from their department chairs and past graduate students.
The Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards continue to grow. This year was a record-setting year for nominations.
The Graduate College invites anyone interested in hearing from the top mentors and recognizing their work to attend the ceremony on January 30, 2019, from 1 to 3 p.m. RSVP to reserve a seat.