The Black Scholars Excellence in Mentorship Award is a new annual award (with a 3-year funding commitment) to acknowledge and celebrate the mentorship work undertaken by Black scholars at Queen’s.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is committed to supporting a more inclusive environment and acknowledges the disproportionate service burden placed on Black scholars. 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 acknowledge those members who have supported their peers through mentorship
This award is funded through the portfolios of the Associate-Dean of Research, the Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigenization, and the Associate-Dean of Graduate Studies.
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 Queen’s University.
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 themselves or their peers through this nomination form. A subcommittee of the FAS EDII Council will review submissions, and a select group of outstanding nominees will receive a Mentorship Award, which includes a grant of up to $3,000.
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 knowledge translation/dissemination, activist or community-based work, research creation, and advocacy.
Nominations forms must be submitted by January 31, 2023.