Ralph Litzinger receives 2024 Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring

Cultural Anthropology is pleased to announce that Professor Ralph Litzinger has received the 2024 Dean's Award for excellence in mentoring, teaching, and inclusive initiatives.  Congratulations, Professor Litzinger!

Each year, the Graduate School at Duke presents the Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Mentoring to recognize the considerable efforts and accomplishments of faculty and graduate students who consistently serve as effective mentors.

Designed to allow the university community to identify faculty and graduate students who embody both the letter and spirit of mentoring, these awards are important examples of the university’s continuing efforts to cultivate a culture of mentoring.

The award criteria reflect that the faculty receiving this award:

• Promote successful completion of students’ research and degree programs by monitoring progress and offering honest, constructive feedback when needed or sought
• Commit to advancing students’ long-term professional development—throughout their journey from student to professional—by recognizing and making potential colleagues aware of their natural talents and acquired skills and by integrating students into the broader culture of the discipline
• Ensure that students master the content and skills of their discipline, including the ability to teach or present that content to professional and non-professional audiences
• Create a supportive environment for research and scholarship by fostering mutual respect and demonstrating sincere and active interest in the well-being of the student
• Maintain accessibility by providing consistently open lines of communication
• Connects students with the resources necessary to take full advantage of academic and professional opportunities and enables students by helping them to develop their own local and national networks
• Model a solid record of scholarship marked by excellence in research and teaching skills, research presentation and publication, the ability to obtain funding, and the exercise and nurturing of good mentoring practices
• Exercise discernment in directing students to appropriate resources and shows a willingness to work collaboratively with other faculty in multiple-mentoring relationships
• Actively support the academic and personal success of students who are of color, female, LGBTQ, first-generation degree-holders or non-native speakers of English—especially in fields in which those students are underrepresented. Additionally, we seek to recognize those mentors who promote an inclusive and diverse environment.

Read the official announcement >>