Professor of English Rebecca Dingo Receives Cheryl Geisler Award for Outstanding Mentor
Content
Professor of English Rebecca Dingo was recently honored with the Cheryl Geisler Award for Outstanding Mentor by The Rhetoric Society of America (RSA).
The award is presented biennially at the RSA conference and honors individuals who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to mentoring during their career through activities such as guiding, supporting, and promoting the education, training, and career development of their students or junior colleagues.
"Professor Dingo’s mentorship philosophy effortlessly integrates theory and practice: she is not just committed to social justice, antiracism, and decoloniality abstractly in herscholarship—this commitment is dynamically reflected in her individual and institutional-level mentorship practices," the selection committee writes. "Award committee members were impressed with the many examples Dingo's letter writers mentioned of her mentorship outside required institutional contexts, e.g. mentoring students at other institutions, inviting students to co-author to elevate their reputations, etc. It's clear she's respected throughout the field as a trustworthy mentor to early career scholars, especially those who have been historically underrepresented in the academy. Her extensive record of supporting and advocating for junior colleagues and graduate students who are multiply-marginalized, her fierce commitment to leveraging institutional resources to create and sustain professional opportunities for her mentees, and her ongoing service to the discipline of rhetorical studieswrit large make her especially deserving of this award."
Reflecting on the honor, Dingo says, "Of all the awards I have received, I am most honored and humbled by this one. I feel honored that my colleagues across the US have noted the time and energy I have spent working with faculty from all over the world. At the same time, I am humbled by the immense success of so many colleagues who have placed their trust in me to guide their careers and scholarship."
Dingo is a recognized national and international scholar who has pushed transnational studies into the forefront of feminist rhetorical studies. She is the author of Networking Arguments: Rhetoric, Transnational Feminism, and Public Policy Writing, which won the W. Ross Winterowd Award in 2012. Additionally, with J. Blake Scott she has edited the book The Megarhetorics of Global Development.