A national body has recognized a Queen’s professor for her outstanding mentorship of graduate students.

Suning Wang of the Department of Chemistry has received the inaugural Canadian Association for Graduate Studies (CAGS) Award for Outstanding Graduate Mentorship.

This award is intended to recognize graduate faculty members with a record of excellent mentorship of graduate students under their supervision. Brenda Brouwer, Vice-Provost and Dean (Graduate Studies) who is also Past President of CAGS, noted the importance of strong mentorship in the success of students during their studies and in their careers.

“The outstanding mentorship that Dr. Wang provides is reflected in the success of her graduate students, who go on to hold prestigious fellowships and faculty positions, and work in government and in industrial labs around the world,” says Brenda Brouwer. “Her students credit her with supporting life-changing personal growth, stemming from her genuine care for each student as a person. She sets high expectations and challenges her students to think critically about science, ask difficult and important questions, communicate scientific findings, and to grow as researchers, scientists, and individuals.”

CAGS has identified a few key behaviours that the best graduate mentors all demonstrate:

• inspiring, guiding, and challenging supervisees to achieve excellence in scholarship;
• providing a supportive environment that stimulates creativity, debate, engagement and dialogue and progression toward timely completion;
• responding to the needs of their students and their career/future aspirations;
• encouraging students to pursue opportunities to share and disseminate their research and scholarly activities within and beyond academia; and,
• supporting supervisees in developing their academic and professional skills and transitioning beyond graduate studies.

“Dr. Wang’s record and the sincere gratitude and enthusiasm of your students for the mentorship she provides them was truly inspiring and stood out as exemplary,” says Susan Porter, CAGS President. “We are delighted to have Dr. Wang serve as the inaugural role model for this award.”

As the recipient of this award, Dr. Wang will receive a certificate of recognition from CAGS at their annual meeting.

“I consider this the most important recognition for my professional life because I spent most of the past 28 years – including 22 years at Queen’s – supervising the research of graduate students,” says Dr. Wang. “I feel very grateful and pleased that my efforts are appreciated by my former and current students. I am truly honored and humbled by this award.”

This award comes hot on the heels of an award for graduate student supervision which Queen’s announced for Dr. Wang back in the fall. She formally received that award during spring convocation 2018.

For more information on the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies (CAGS) Award for Outstanding Graduate Mentorship, visit cags.ca.