Academic Senate awards Professor Elizabeth Peña the Distinguished Faculty Award for Mentorship for 2024-2025
By Carol Jean Tomoguchi-Perez
August 23, 2024
August 23, 2024
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The Academic Senate at UC Irvine has named Professor Elizabeth Peña the recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award for Mentorship for 2024-2025. The Academic Senate grants the award to faculty who have made outstanding contributions through mentoring of students or other faculty that takes place outside of a traditional teaching or research relationship and beyond their formal advising duties. The award recognizes mentoring activities that are not accompanied by additional financial compensation, with special consideration given to mentoring junior faculty, and mentoring with the intent to address gender equity and ethnic diversity. Peña has also served as co-chair of the School of Education’s Climate Council, and as the associate dean for faculty development and diversity.
Distinguished Professor Judith Kroll, on behalf of the School of Education, nominated Peña for the award, spotlighting the unique, inclusive methods of mentorship she employs and referring to her as "the architect of a model of mentorship that has the consequence of developing and changing the community itself." |
Elizabeth Peña
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Namely, her mentoring methods place her on common ground with those she interacts with. "She brings others together to celebrate diversity, to eat
together, to watch films that address diversity, to write together, and to plan professional activities within and outside of UCI," Kroll said. "Her ability to do all of this is a great gift but it is also a model that opens the community to many who might not have envisioned themselves as legitimate within the academy. (Peña) does this while maintaining a highly active, well funded, and highly visible program of research."
In addition, Kroll pointed out Peña's strong history of mentoring a large number of students , and her efforts to acquire additional training on mentorship herself, including becoming a trained facilitator at the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research at the University of Wisconsin in 2021 and receiving an invitation from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Advisory Council to attend the council meeting at NIH in May to specifically share her mentorship experience. "This (was) an invitation that speaks volumes about the high regard with which her work and mentorship is known," Kroll said.
An awards ceremony will be held on March 5, 2025, featuring a lecture by the winner of the Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research, Distinguished Professor Kyriacos Athanasiou, the presentation of the 2024-2025 Distinguished Faculty Awards, and a reception.
Peña will receive a monetary award to be used for travel, research expenses, and other professional development activities throughout the academic year.
together, to watch films that address diversity, to write together, and to plan professional activities within and outside of UCI," Kroll said. "Her ability to do all of this is a great gift but it is also a model that opens the community to many who might not have envisioned themselves as legitimate within the academy. (Peña) does this while maintaining a highly active, well funded, and highly visible program of research."
In addition, Kroll pointed out Peña's strong history of mentoring a large number of students , and her efforts to acquire additional training on mentorship herself, including becoming a trained facilitator at the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research at the University of Wisconsin in 2021 and receiving an invitation from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Advisory Council to attend the council meeting at NIH in May to specifically share her mentorship experience. "This (was) an invitation that speaks volumes about the high regard with which her work and mentorship is known," Kroll said.
An awards ceremony will be held on March 5, 2025, featuring a lecture by the winner of the Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research, Distinguished Professor Kyriacos Athanasiou, the presentation of the 2024-2025 Distinguished Faculty Awards, and a reception.
Peña will receive a monetary award to be used for travel, research expenses, and other professional development activities throughout the academic year.
