Award for Outstanding Faculty Mentoring

Award Description

Established in AY 2022-23, the Award for Outstanding Faculty Mentoring recognizes and honors faculty who go above and beyond in guiding and advocating for their colleagues, strengthening collaboration and excellence across the university.

 

In recognition of the vital service that mentorship, both formal and informal, provides to the university community, the Office of Faculty Affairs (OFA) is seeking nominations for outstanding faculty mentorship by an individual faculty member. OFA seeks to recognize up to five mentors across campus. Those selected for recognition will receive a $500 award to be applied to their professional development funds. 

Review the nomination process and submission criteria below. Nominations for AY25-26 will open in Spring 2026.

 

  • Nominees may have served as a mentor through the ACUMent program in the Office of Faculty Affairs or within their department. Mentors can be formally assigned or serve in an informal capacity.
  • Nominees must have mentored one or more CU Boulder faculty.
  • Nominees must be permanently employed faculty who mentor tenured, tenure-track, or teaching and clinical faculty. 
  • Mentors are not allowed to self-nominate.

Awardees will demonstrate many of the following qualities and activities of an outstanding mentor:

  1. Support: Encouraging growth and achievement by providing a supportive environment where challenges, successes, and failures can be openly shared and examined. Helping mentees to explore their skills and interests so as to assist them in better defining and attaining their goals.
  2. Information and Advice: Setting aside regular time to share knowledge, experiences, and wisdom to guide mentees in reaching their academic, professional, and/or personal goals. Making themselves available to provide regular and constructive feedback on mentees’ work.  
  3. Professional Exposure: Involving and/or supporting mentees in professional/leadership opportunities and readily sharing knowledge of other such opportunities with mentees. If the mentor shares research interests, including mentees in publications, grants, presentations, and/or expositions when appropriate. Providing valuable access and opportunities by facilitating academic, professional, and personal contacts.
  4. Inclusion: Creating access by sharing knowledge of the political landscape and power dynamics in the university and (where relevant) the discipline as well as effective strategies for navigating those structures. If the mentee is from an underrepresented, first-generation, or marginalized group, paying attention to the development of skills and support networks for overcoming institutional barriers they may face.
  5. Role Modeling: Maintaining high standards for excellence as an engaged university community member. Engaging in respectful relationships with colleagues, earlier-career colleagues, and students. Acknowledging power differentials in professional relationships and behaving with integrity. Encouraging mentees to adopt similar principles of professional behavior.
  1. Any CU Boulder faculty faculty member may initiate a nomination or nominations.  
  2. The nomination packet must include the following:  
    1. A nomination letter addressed to the Outstanding Faculty Mentoring Award Committee. The letter should include the following:  
      1. Name, title, department of the nominator  
      2. Name, title, department of the nominee  
      3. A clear description of the contributions that make the nominee deserving of this award based on the above criteria.   
    2. A letter of support from an additional faculty member. If the mentee is the nominator, the additional faculty member could be another mentee or a colleague who knows the mentor’s mentorship well.
    3. The deadline for nominations is March 17, 2025 at 5:00 p.m.

Save the nomination as a single PDF file and email the nomination packet to OFAFDS@Colorado.EDU. The nomination packet will be shared with each nominee after the selection process is complete.

A review committee consisting of 3-5 members drawn from OFA and from previous Outstanding Faculty Mentoring Award winners. The review will be based on the award criteria listed above. Overall, the awardees will be selected based on the nominated faculty member’s excellence as a mentor to faculty and the quality of the mentor-mentee relationship(s). 

Awardees and nominees will be notified by April 1, 2025. 

 

Co-Executive Sponsors:

  • Michele Moses, Vice Chancellor & Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Education
  • Marin Stanek, Vice Chancellor for Information Technology

Task Force Members:

  • Michele Callagy, Executive Assistant to the Director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
  • Yonca Ertimur, Chair of the Accounting Division and Professor, Leeds School of Business
  • Andrew Johnson, Head of Data and Scholarly Communication Services Section and Associate Professor, University Libraries
  • Victoria Johnson, Faculty Affairs Program Manager, Colorado Law School
  • Joseph Labrecque, Associate Teaching Professor, Advertising, Public Relations & Design and Representative, Academic Technologies & Services Committee, Boulder Faculty Assembly
  • Grace Maniscalco, Manager of Provost’s Office Operations and Co-Chair of Payroll, Benefits, Retirement, and Legislative Committee, Staff Council
  • Nathan Mertens, Assistant Professor, College of Music
  • Nathalie Moyen, Professor, Leeds School of Business
  • Fernando Rosario-Ortiz, Vice Chancellor for Academic Resource Management and Professor, Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering
  • Núria Silleras-Fernández, Professor, Spanish & Portuguese
  • Glenda Walden, Associate Teaching Professor, Sociology and Chair, Teaching Faculty Affairs Committee, Boulder Faculty Assembly
  • Philip White, Associate Professor, University Libraries and Representative, Academic Technologies & Services Committee, Boulder Faculty Assembly
  • Terri Wilson, Chair of Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice and Associate Professor, School of Education
  • Andrew Young, Assistant Professor, Critical Media Practices and Member, Faculty Affairs Advisory Board

Working group members:

  • Orrie Gartner, Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology (OIT)
  • Jon Giltner, IT Strategist (OIT)
  • Marilyn Kerr, Principal Project Manager (OIT)
  • Ka Yong Kleiner, Director of Strategic Initiatives for Faculty Affairs (OFA)
  • Cholpon Minbaeva, Director of Faculty Data & Impact (OFA)
  • Dylan Nicklas, Sr. Business Analyst (OIT)
  • David Otterman, Data Engineer (OIT)
  • Alex Viggio, Director of Faculty Information Systems (OIT)