Nominations are open for the 2026 Mentoring Awards.
All nominations are due by Friday, February 27. Learn about the nomination and selection processes here.
There are 3 separate award categories:
Outstanding Graduate Program Community Award
This award recognizes a graduate program/department that fosters the Foundational Values and proactively works to meet their students’ educational and extended professional development needs
This might include (but need not be limited to) some of the following activities:
- impactful orientations and annual progress reports
- sustained career and professional development programing
- a rich intellectual climate as evidenced through colloquia, seminars, etc.
The program will receive $5,000 from the Graduate School in 2026-27 to support graduate program activities.
Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award
This award recognizes faculty whose work with graduate students exemplifies the Foundational Values through ensuring that their students meet program expectations and milestones, and providing multiple enriched career and professional development opportunities (through, e.g., research experiences that go beyond the requirements of the dissertation, professional development and networking opportunities, community engagement experiences, enhanced teaching preparation, collaborative research/ scholarship/ creative activities).
Two awards will be available this year, one for an assistant/early associate professor (2-3 years in associate rank) and one for advanced associate and full professors. The mentors will receive $1500 from the Graduate School in 2026-27 to support mentoring activities.
Outstanding Doctoral Student Mentor Award
This award recognizes a doctoral student who has already demonstrated the capacity to be a strong mentor. This student will have engaged in sustained mentoring activities at MSU that help other graduate or undergraduate students succeed in their own research.
These activities could be related to, e.g., a course, a lab, a community research project, field research, and/or support programs. The student will receive a $1,000 fellowship award. The student must plan to be enrolled in spring or summer 2026.