Laura Leites, associate research professor of quantitative forest ecology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, is the recipient of the 2022 Rosemary Schraer Mentoring Award.
The Rosemary Schraer Mentoring Award, established in 1994 by family, friends and colleagues of Rosemary Schraer, a former associate provost of Penn State, is presented each year to a University employee who exemplifies Schraer’s giving of herself as a mentor and who has voluntarily, over a period of time, helped others recognize and achieve their potential. Consideration is given to employees who have a record of outstanding mentoring service that goes beyond the requirements of their employment duties and responsibilities.
Nominators said Leites’ commitment to mentor and enhance the professional development of nontenure track faculty members embodies the spirit of this award. They said feedback from junior faculty members prompted her nomination.
Once an early, nontenured-line faculty member herself at Penn State, nominators said, Leites took it upon herself to improve resources that she didn’t have access to early in her career. She worked with other departments to learn about effective approaches to mentoring and met with faculty in her department to decide the best path forward. Faculty said Leites used these meetings to search for solutions while gathering information about the concerns of junior faculty members.
The result was a two-pronged approach to mentoring. Junior faculty now benefit from both one-on-one mentoring and group mentoring.
“Dr. Leites created an environment that felt welcoming and safe for sharing concerns and getting advice,” a junior faculty said. “If it had not been for this group, I think I would have been much more anxious and confused about my career here because the predominant available career advice I’ve encountered outside this group is geared towards tenure track faculty.”
Nominators called Leites a natural mentor to the benefit of her peers, students and members of her professional community.
“Leites’ effective mentoring is clearly not just a function of her faculty position, or that of a principal investigator on a grant,” a nominator said. “It is an integral part of who she is, and it is something she thrives at doing. She is always responsive to the requests for mentoring she receives and the needs around her every day. This is her gift; one she shares generously with her Penn State family.”