The Black Excellence in Mentorship Award is a 3-year award program, launched in 2023, to acknowledge and celebrate the mentorship work undertaken by the Black community at ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is committed to supporting a more inclusive environment and acknowledges the disproportionate service burden placed on Black faculty members, students, and staff. Despite this barrier, many have found a way to support their peers through formal and informal mentorship. The Faculty, building on recommendations from the PICRDI Report and reaffirmed through the Scarborough Charter, are launching the Mentorship Award to recognize those members who have supported their peers through mentorship
This award is funded through the portfolios of Associate Dean (Research), Associate Dean (Graduate Studies), and the Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigenization.
Eligibility
Black Faculty (inclusive of continuing and term adjuncts), graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences , who individually or as a team, contribute to an inclusive and supportive research environment at ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥.
The Faculty of Arts and Science recognizes that scholarship comes in diverse forms and that mentorship is a mutual/reciprocal process.
Nominations:
Mentors can be nominated by their peers through this nomination form and self-nominations are welcomed. An FAS subcommittee will review submissions, and a select group of outstanding nominees will receive a $3,000 Mentorship Award. For Faculty and staff, this award will be processed as salary payment and subject to mandatory payroll deductions. Preference will be given to applicants who have not previously won this award.
Note: nominations can be made external parties (former students, colleagues from other institutions, etc) but mentors themselves must currently be employed by FAS. Groups or collectives may also be nominated or self-nominate; however, mentors can only be selected for one award.
What is Mentorship?
Mentorship is about giving and receiving wisdom within a web of relationships. It may be structured through a formal program or offered informally. In defining what is meant by mentorship, outstanding nominees will demonstrate mentorship practices and outcomes that are based on mutuality. Research supports that high quality mentorship is based in mutuality - the idea that the relationship is reciprocal and that both or all members learn from one another and de-emphasizes hierarchical relationships working from a model of having "power with" others rather than "power-over" them.
The committee will also consider how mentorship has supported research activities, broadly defined, which can include items such as conducting original research leading to publications, knowledge translation/dissemination, activist or community-based work, research creation, as well as advocacy.
Nominations forms must be submitted by January 6, 2025.