Rackham Master’s Mentoring Award
All of the nominations for faculty awards administered by Rackham are submitted directly through our website. This may require some changes in the way nominators put together the dossiers. Please read through this site before you begin the nomination process.
To honor and encourage the efforts and accomplishments of faculty who serve as distinguished mentors to master’s degree students, the Rackham Graduate School has established the Rackham Master’s Mentoring Awards. We seek to recognize faculty members from any discipline who serve as dedicated and inspiring mentors to Rackham master’s students, especially those students who do not intend to pursue doctoral degrees. This award is part of the Graduate School’s continuing effort to foster a culture of high quality graduate mentoring.
- General Information
- Guidelines for the Preparation of Nominations
- Recipients of the Rackham Master’s Mentoring Award
General Information
Eligibility
Nominees must be faculty members who have advised a substantial number of Rackham master’s degree students over a number of years. More than one nomination may be submitted from any one program. Nominees may be a tenured or tenure track faculty member, or faculty member who is a lecturer, or a clinical or research faculty member. Schools, departments and programs are encouraged to recognize that mentoring may take a variety of forms. Nominators are encouraged to identify women, faculty of color, and members of other groups historically underrepresented in their discipline or profession.
Selection Criteria
Nominees should be scholars, researchers, artists or professionals with a demonstrated commitment to fostering the intellectual, creative, scholarly, or professional growth of their master’s degree students.
Number of Awards
The recipients will receive an award of $1,000. We expect to make 2 awards in 2012, one to a faculty member, and one to faculty member who is a lecturer, or a clinical or research faculty member.
Source of Nominations
Nominations may be submitted by the nominee’s dean, associate dean, department/program chair, or graduate chair. Graduate students and alumni are encouraged to contact department leadership with appropriate suggestions and to participate in the nomination process.
Selection Process
Nominations will be reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee composed of senior faculty. Awardees will be selected by the Dean of the Graduate School, based upon recommendations of this committee. The names of the recipients will be announced shortly thereafter and the awards will be formally presented at a ceremony in April 2012.
Deadline and Submission
The nomination deadline for the 2012 Rackham Master’s Mentoring Award is January 23, 2012, 12PM\noon EST.
For more information contact:
Pat McCune, Ph.D.
Senior Program Manager
915 East Washington Street
1130 Rackham
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1070
Telephone: (734) 936-1647
E-mail: faculty-awards@umich.edu
Guidelines for the Preparation of Nominations
The complete instructions for submitting a nomination for this award, and the FAQ for the general process of submitting nominations online, are available here as well as on the separate nomination website.
Listed below are the eight items that must be included in the dossier before the nomination can be submitted. You will be asked to either enter text into text boxes or online forms, or upload documents in Adobe PDF format.
Before you begin, please read the section about requesting and submitting letters of support below. These letters should not be sent to you but rather submitted directly by the letter writer electronically through a separate website.
A nomination dossier can be set up by a U-M faculty or staff member. Up to six others may be given access to the site by the person who opens the dossier on the website. After a nomination dossier is started the nominator(s) and assistant(s) may login to the faculty awards nomination system as many times as needed in order to complete the nomination.
Contact Information Form
Provide in the online form all the contact information requested for both the nominee and the nominator—not the administrative contact.
Letter of Nomination
You may submit your nomination letter by uploading the document in Adobe PDF format. Or, if you would prefer to use the text box, we recommend that you write your statement in a non-web format (such as a word processing or text editor program), save a copy for your personal records, and then copy and paste the final document into the space provided.
The nomination letter may be no longer than five pages (3,400 words) in length.
The letter of nomination should be submitted by the nominee’s dean, associate dean, department/program chair, or graduate chair, or by professional school or graduate students or alumni with the endorsement of the nominee’s school or college and department administration. If the nomination is being submitted by a department or program other than the one in which the nominee has his/her major appointment, the head of that department should also sign the letter.
Committee members often find specific reference to the selection criteria helpful as they try to evaluate the mentoring skills of nominees. The nomination should discuss the nominee’s special contributions to the mentoring of master’s students in particular. This may include reference to how the nominee:
- promotes successful completion of students’ graduate work;
- advances and enriches students’ long-term professional, artistic, or scholarly development;
- makes opportunities for enrichment and challenging professional experiences available to students during their time in graduate school;
- engages students in the major challenges and issues facing leaders in the discipline or profession;
- inspires commitment to life-long excellence in the discipline or profession;
- provides students with the support, encouragement, respect, and resources to take full advantage of academic and professional opportunities;
- collaborates with other faculty in mentoring.
Letters of Support
Note: Do not have the letters of support sent to you. These letters must be submitted by the writers directly to the nomination dossier through a separate website. Writers will be asked to either enter text into an online form, or upload documents in Adobe PDF format.
When you contact the letter writer with your request, direct him/her to https://secure.rackham.umich.edu/Faculty/support/ and provide the writer with the U-M ID of the nominee and name of the award. On this website the writers will find straightforward directions for submitting the letter of support for your nominee.
Once the letters have been sent into the website you will be able to read them in the nomination dossier and then select which letters you actually want to include when you submit the nomination. Only the letters you have selected will be seen by the review committee.
Nominations should include not more than six letters in support of the nominee from current and/or former professional and graduate students who have studied with the nominee at the master’s level. The writers should reflect the full diversity of students mentored by the nominee. These letters should detail the nature and extent of the nominee’s mentorship.
Each letter of support may be no longer than five pages (3,400 words) in length.
Complete and Current Curriculum Vitae
Include the nominee’s c.v. by uploading the most recent version in Adobe PDF format. Note: while information about courses taught and dissertation service may be in the c.v., providing that same information by completing the forms below is necessary because it facilitates the review process.
Courses Form
Complete the online form by providing in the text boxes the following information for all graduate courses taught during the past eight terms: course number, course name, approximate number of students enrolled, term and year taught.
If your school/college represents course information in another format you will be able to describe this in a separate text box.
Service as Advisor Form
Complete the form by providing the following information for all service as advisor to professional and graduate students in the past 4 years: name of student, student’s department/program, year the degree was conferred or is expected, role served by the nominee, and placement information for the student, if available. (This information for additional years of service may be provided if available.) Note: although we are especially interested in Rackham master’s degree students, the faculty member’s role in advising other students (undergraduates, non-Rackham master’s students, or doctoral students) may also be described.
Teaching Evaluations
Please indicate the courses for which you would like us to request your nominee’s evaluation reports from The Office of Evaluations and Examinations. That office will send the summary reports on student evaluations directly to us in a digital file. This file will then be uploaded to the dossier.
If your school/college uses another mode of evaluation please contact us to determine how your nominee’s evaluations can be submitted.
Recipients of the Rackham Master’s Mentoring Award
2012
- Volker Sick, Professor of Mechanical Engineering
2011
- Avery Demond, Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Susan Waltz, Public Policy
2010
- Eileen Pollack, English Language & Literature
- Steven Yaffee, Natural Resources and the Environment
2009
- Bradley R. Smith, Art and Radiology
2008
- Catherine Reischl, Educational Studies
2007
- Beverly Yashar, Human Genetics