Graduate Mentoring Awards

The Graduate College is pleased to invite nominations for the fifth annual Graduate Mentoring Awards.

Graduate Mentoring Awards are designed to encourage and award excellence and innovation in all aspects of graduate mentoring. Each year the Graduate College will provide up to four awards of $2,000 each per year.

Previous Recipients
Previous recipients of the Graduate College Graduate Mentoring Awards

Eligibility
Nominees must be full members of the graduate faculty at UIC, actively engaged in the direction of graduate students in masters or doctoral programs. Nominees must have been on the faculty at UIC for at least four academic years. Winners of the Graduate Mentoring Award will not be eligible for the award again for five academic years.

Criteria
Given the immense academic diversity on campus, there will be no single set of criteria appropriate to all nominees. Nominators are encouraged to think creatively about the many and diverse ways in which faculty can contribute to the development and support of graduate students. Examples of the kinds of contributions that might be rewarded with a Graduate Mentoring Award include, but are not limited to:

• Promoting intellectual growth through graduate teaching and thesis direction.
• Fostering the development of graduate students' communication skills in written and oral presentations.
• Effective direction of dissertations, including timely evaluation, guidance and feedback on dissertations.
• Being accessible to students for discussion of intellectual or professional questions and concerns, communicating with them effectively and respectfully, and encouraging such interactions.
• Educating students in the culture of the appropriate disciplines, helping them to network with other professionals.
• Providing career counseling and placement assistance including possibilities outside of the academy.
• Actively helping students to progress to degree in a timely fashion and to develop the skills necessary to professional success.
• Excellence and innovation in teaching, including the development of interdisciplinary or non-traditional initiatives.
• Promoting a climate of respect and collegiality that enhance the graduate experience and increase chances of success.

Nomination Procedures
Each department may nominate one candidate for a mentoring award each year. Departments are strongly encouraged to devise a selection procedure that includes graduate students and alumni. Nominations are due in the Graduate College using the secure dropbox link (below) by November 16th.  The documents should be submitted as a single PDF file in the following order:

• The Mentoring Award Cover Sheet 
• The nominee's CV
• A statement (not more than 1200 words) written by the nominee outlining his or her approach to Graduate mentoring
• A list of all graduate courses taught by the nominee in the past four years
• A list of all graduate students supervised by the nominee in the past four years and the status of their projects
• A list of the nominee's advisees who have graduated in the past four years and information about their current employment
• A description of other activities though which the nominee has contributed to graduate education at UIC
• A letter of support from the department head or DGS
• A letter of support from a current graduate student
• A letter of support from a recent alumna or alumnus (of the past four years)
• A description of the process by which the nominee was selected

We recommend that departments begin the selection process as soon as possible to solicit opinions from graduate students, alumni, and faculty and provide adequate time to prepare the application. Letter writers should be lined up by October 9, and the nominee's portion of the application should also be due at this time in case letter writers wish to consider it. The recommended in-department deadline for letters of support is October 23.

Selection Procedure
Nomination packets will be reviewed by an interdisciplinary committee composed of graduate faculty, including previous recipients of the Graduate Mentoring Award, and at least one previous winner of the Outstanding Dissertation Award. Awards will be granted by the Graduate Dean based on the recommendation of this committee.

Deadlines and Announcement of Awards

• Mentoring Awards Nomination PDF file upload due in Graduate College: November 16, 2012
• Announcement of Recipients:  Extended to:  March 18, 2013

Submission Instructions

• Save the forms/documents listed above as one single PDF per nominee.
  
  Tips on combining multiple PDF documents 
  (updated 27 January 2010)
   
• The PDF files should be saved using the following naming convention:
  
  MA_YearofAward_DepartmentNameAbbreviation_NomineeLastNameFirstInitial.pdf
  
  Example - AY 2011-2012 nominee from History named William Smith:
  
  MA_2012_Hist_SmithW.pdf
  
  
• Do not have spaces in the pdf name.  There is a 2GB size limit on each individual file.  
   
• When you are ready to upload files to the Graduate College, click on the link below. 
  
  The Graduate College has an account with yousendit.com.   The submitter does not need an account and does not need to login.
  
  Submitter should input email address where requested.
  
  Under Subject, type "'MA,' name of department/program."
  
  In the message area, type the name of the person doing the online submission. 
  
  Click "browse" and then find the location on your computer and choose the file. 
  
  To submit, click the green "Send It" button to complete the process
   
• After submitting, you will receive an on-screen message with the result.  You must wait to receive that message for the submission to be successful.  Additionally, an email acknowledgment is sent to the email address that was input. 

Upload Mentoring Award Nomination PDF File to the Graduate College Here [Deadline:  Nov. 16, 2012]