2021 Faculty Mentoring Awardees

The Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes senior faculty who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to faculty mentoring through their work with tenure-track and mid-career faculty in developing their careers. Exceptional mentoring can include offering advice, feedback and guidance on research activities, coaching on work-life balance issues, providing professional opportunities for mentees, and/or assisting in development of teaching skills.

Click here to view the 2020 Faculty Mentoring Award recipients. 

The recipients of the 2021 Faculty Mentoring Award are:

Rachel Adams
Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Faculty of Arts and Sciences

"I understand good mentoring to begin by acknowledging inequality—in this case, of experience and institutional standing—but also in a spirit of respect for the capacities, talents, and accomplishments of more junior faculty. I approach mentoring by assuming I can learn as much from more junior colleagues as they can learn from me."

Nabila El-Bassel
University Professor and Willma and Albert Musher Professor of Social Work
Columbia School of Social Work

"As the primary mentor in the Multi-level, Dynamic and Strength mentorship (MDSM) approach, I am fully engaged and meet with the mentee on an ongoing basis, but I also encourage the involvement of a mentor team that stresses collaboration and team-building, which challenges the dyadic configuration of the traditional mentoring relationship."

Virginia Page Fortna
Harold Brown Professor of US Foreign and Security Policy
Faculty of Arts and Sciences

"I internalized the importance of making it clear to those I mentor that I have faith in their potential and capabilities. A relationship of respect makes it possible to provide unsparing critique in a constructive spirit. Imposter syndrome is real, and having a mentor who treats your work seriously, making it clear they believe in you is, in my own experience, absolutely critical to success."