The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will honor three faculty members for exceptional mentorship at this year's Commencement Convocation. The three honorees are Gilbert M. Joseph, the Farnam Professor of History; Michele Dillon, associate professor of sociology; and Haig Keshishian, professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology.

The honorees were selected from 55 faculty members who were nominated by 97 individual students. Choosing the winners from this qualified pool wasn't easy, according to Patricia Armstrong, a graduate student in French who was a member of the committee that selected the winning teachers.

"The nominees all showed such exemplary qualities as mentors that it was almost agonizing to make the decision," she says. "I was heartened to learn that so many professors in such a wide range of disciplines have made an exceptional commitment to nurturing the intellectual growth and development of graduate students at Yale."

The Awards and Evaluation Committee of the Graduate Student Assembly, working with the office of Teaching Fellow Preparation and Development (TFPD), considered "ways to identify and celebrate examples of excellence in teaching and mentoring," said Bill Rando, director of TFPD. "The committee explored a number of models and eventually brought a proposal to [Graduate School] Dean [Susan] Hockfield which was accepted and put into action."

"I am delighted that the Graduate School has found a way to honor faculty members for reaching out to their students and helping them become full-fledged colleagues," Hockfield says. "The graduate student-faculty adviser relationship is immensely important, both to those starting their careers and to those privileged to guide the next generation of scholars and researchers."

In nominating Joseph for the honor, one student wrote, "As an adviser, he has helped me with difficult decisions, made critical and creative suggestions ... and placed me in contact with other scholars and institutions in the United States and Mexico. Beyond his work as a scholar and teacher, he has always been genuinely concerned with my personal life and the transition into graduate school and life in New Haven for my wife and myself.

"Gil Joseph is invested in his role as an adviser and dedicates extraordinary time and energy to his graduate students, their academic development and their professional future," the student continued. "Such a commitment is especially laudable considering that it comes from a first-rate scholar actively engaged in research and teaching who is also involved in a slew of academic conferences, societies and programs.... The committee could not choose a more exemplary or deserving mentor as the first recipient of this honor."

One letter placing Dillon's name in nomination for the award said, "From my discussions with graduate students in other departments and from my own experiences, I am convinced that Professor Dillon is an uncommon faculty mentor.... Michele has also been wonderful in terms of mentoring me in my teaching career. She helped me through the process of submitting a syllabus to teach my own course in the Fall of 1998, for which I was awarded the Prize Teaching Fellowship last May (1999). She has helped me sort out problems while working as a Teaching Assistant for other professors, and she has also encouraged me to pursue other teaching prospects ...to enhance my teaching portfolio and my pedagogical skills.... I am nominating Michele on the basis of her great academic mentoring, her wonderful role as a dissertation advisor, and for truly representing the best in intellectual life and academic endeavors."

In a letter nominating Keshishian, another student wrote, "If not for Dr. Keshishian, I would have left Yale during my fourth year, but his mentoring has allowed me not only to strive on towards the completion of my degree, but also to find purpose and happiness in my graduate studies. Dr. Keshishian ... took steps to include me in the vibrant intellectual community of his lab, finding me bench space, desk space and creating a place for me in scientific discourse and lab meetings. In addition, he took it upon himself to familiarize himself with my specific field of work, the better to help guide my research. [He] continues to support me intellectually, to make sure I know that someone believes in me, and believes in my research. This has allowed me to pursue the education for which I came to Yale. I only hope that I can be a mentor to others as Dr. Keshishian has been to me."

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