Excellence in Mentoring Award

For associate or full professors with five or more years at KU SOM.

The SOM Executive Dean's Excellence in Mentoring Award is earned by associate and full professor members of the faculty and is based on years of experience. The award is designed to allow junior faculty a way to honor their senior faculty Mentors who embody both the letter and spirit of mentoring. This prestigious award acknowledges the time sacrifice and commitments through effort and advice by senior faculty professors to ensure our junior faculty achieve their full academic potential by developing skills and attaining advancement in the clinical, research and teaching areas.

Recipients of this prestigious award earn membership in The University of Kansas School of Medicine Society of Distinguished Mentors.

Criteria

To submit a nomination you must be one of the candidate's current or previous Mentees. A Mentee, as defined for the purpose of this award, is either: a current junior faculty member (or assistant professor) in the KU SOM who is currently involved in a mentoring relationship with the candidate that has existed for a minimum of two years or more; or a past junior faculty member (now promoted beyond assistant professor) in the KU SOM who was involved in a mentoring relationship with the candidate for a minimum of two years or more while they were an assistant professor.

To qualify as a candidate for the Excellence in Mentoring Award the individual must:

• be a professor or associate professor in the KU SOM.
• have been a member of the KU SOM faculty for more than five years (nominees do not qualify for this award if serving as a member of the Dean's staff.)
• have mentored a substantial number (five or more) of junior faculty over the years.
• be scholars with demonstrated success in the areas they mentor.

Nominees must have evidence of superb performance in mentoring junior faculty. For example:

• Accessibility and commitment to "be there".
• Excellent guidance of individual research and/or creative projects.
• Willingness to assist junior faculty in pursuit of their stated goals, actively guiding development of teaching skills, research and pursuit of professional goals, clearly articulating expectations.
• Holding their mentee to high standards, encouraging and helping them establish their own records of scholarly activity or performance, evidence of supporting mentee's participation in events (e.g., meetings, conferences, committees, speaking engagements).
• Ability to involve their mentees in “networking” activities with other professionals and faculty.
• Evidence of mentees completing their defined projects (such at successful competition for grants, completion of publications, meeting promotional goals) in a timely manner.

The award will be based on the following criteria:

• A demonstrated commitment to fostering the intellectual, creative, scholarly and professional growth of their mentees so they may function effectively and with measurable success in the organization.
• Evidence of sustained commitment (two years or more) to a professional mentoring relationship that results in career growth or personal development of three or more mentees.
• Demonstrated valued behavior, attitudes, and/or skills that aid the mentees in achieving competence, confidence and a clear professional identity.
• Candidates may hold the award more than once, but not within a five-year period.

Nomination Packet Required

The nomination packet for submission must include a letter nominating your candidate and including:

• A testimonial of what your mentor has meant to you during the time you were an assistant professor.
• Descriptions of specific behaviors and their significance.
• Specific examples of mentoring interactions.
• Descriptions of accomplishments that you directly credit to the influence of the nominated mentor.
• A statement providing a simple explanation of your work as an assistant professor directly or indirectly influenced by the mentorship, dating from the mentorship relationship.
• Mentees are strongly encouraged to give specific examples of goals attained, projects completed, promotions, grants or awards earned, obstacles overcome, lessons learned in addition to anything else that they feel is attributable to the mentoring relationship.
• Please consider and address the List of Questions to Consider when writing a letter.
• Include in your nomination packet a copy your CV (up-to-date within the last six months).
• Ask for additional support in the form of a letter for your candidate from their chair, director, professional colleague(s) and as many of the candidate's past or present mentees (individuals who were/are mentored while assistant professors).
• Ask each person to write a letter giving concrete examples of what this candidate’s mentoring time and effort has meant to the careers and career paths of junior faculty colleagues (whom were assistant professors when they were mentored by the candidate), referring them to the List of Questions to Consider.
• Ask each current or former junior faculty mentee you want to provide support to also provide a electronic copy of their CV to allow the selection committee to further recognize the successful efforts of the candidate, (CV up to date within the last six months). The success and progress of junior faculty members mentored will be reviewed from the letters submitted by whom you ask to submit letters of support.

Additional instructions

• Support documents will not be accepted from individuals addressing their mentoring experiences with the candidate while they were a post-doc or resident. This award recognizes the effort of mentoring junior faculty members only.
• Ask the candidate to write a statement about his or her Mentoring Philosophy (maximum one page) and include it in your nomination packet.  Without this statement, the packet will be disqualified.
• Compile your nomination packet using the Nomination Packet Cover Sheet. The nomination packet (cover sheet, all letters letters and CVs) must be submitted in a single email to:

Ms. Marty McLaughlin, Associate Director
Office of Professional Development and Faculty Affairs, SOM
Email address: mmclaughlin@kumc.edu
Phone Number: 913-588-1381

Selection

Critical to the assessment of the nominees is the extent of mentoring and the apparent quality of mentoring judge by outcome measures assessed from:

• The achievements of those mentored including publications, awards and prizes and the career paths during or since the conclusion of the mentorship
• Letters of support from additional current or former Mentees of the candidate
• Other statements of support (e.g. Department Chairs, Center Directors and Division Chiefs)
• The collegiality of the mentoring experience and the desirable characteristics of the mentoring environment (assessed from statements of support).

Nominations will be reviewed and selected by the Mentoring Awards Committee Members chaired by the Associate Dean for Professional Development and Faculty Affairs and two finalists in each category will be recommended to the Executive Dean. The committee comprises various professional levels from an interdisciplinary arena along with past recipients of all the Mentoring Award categories. Final selection will be by the Executive Dean, School of Medicine, University of Kansas.

Award & Presentation

• $1,500 each award
• Trophy
• Membership in The University of Kansas School of Medicine Society of Distinguished Mentors.
• Presented by the Executive Dean at the Annual Faculty Retreat in October.