5/8/2009

Grande-Allen, Patten earn Presidential Mentoring Award

BY KEN FOUNTAIN
Special to the Rice News

Jane Grande-Allen, associate professor of bioengineering, and Robert Patten, the Lynette S. Autrey Professor in Humanities, are the winners of the 2009 Presidential Mentoring Award, given annually to Rice faculty members who demonstrate a strong commitment to helping others in the community achieve their goals.


	JANE GRANDE-ALLEN

Mentoring has become one of the delights of working at Rice, said Grande-Allen, who helps students at all levels as well as junior faculty find their way through the complexities of university life. "I get to know them before they go off to become faculty members at other universities, and we stay in touch," she said. "We talk frequently about how things are going, how to deal with practical teaching issues, how to manage student issues, that sort of thing.

"It's really touching when they get back to me and say, 'I loved learning that from you.' Or, 'I have a boss that makes me appreciate you!'"

Grande-Allen, whose group focuses on tissue engineering heart valves to find clues to many soft-tissue diseases, was thrilled to hear she'd won this year's award. "There are many things that are tough about the job, but mentoring is never one of them," she said. "This is the one thing I can count on to be satisfying, and it's nice to see that it's appreciated by Rice.

"I don't think it's formally part of the job description. It's understood that you mentor your students. But doing a good job at it – that's up to you."


	ROBERT PATTEN

For Patten, who teaches graduate seminars in Victorian literature and serves as editor of the journal SEL: Studies in English Literature: 1500-1900, the award is a recognition of the enthusiasm he brings to his teaching.

“We all get down with our jobs from time to time,” he said. “But any time I can get back to the literature and read it, just for an hour in the evening or the weekend, I’m just so in awe of the achievement of writers that I want to go back and communicate that to students.”

Patten said because Rice is a small, close-knit community, it's “the perfect institutional setup” for working with both graduate and undergraduate students. “Because they’re on campus all the time, it’s possible to have a running conversation, with students dropping by the office or sharing a coffee and putting their ideas into the pot.”

Patten takes pride in helping students work through their ideas and bring unique interpretations to any particular text.

“It’s really important,” he said, “to be receptive to all of those different interests and potentials, to figure out a way to say, ‘That’s a great subject. Let’s figure out how you can develop that. Teach me more about that and tell me more about it.’

“I feel like a mentoring award is about real partnerships in education, where I’m as likely to be the one mentored as the student,” he said. “I try not to lecture at or talk down to students until they ‘get it.’ Often they have to teach me about new ways of thinking about literature and language and, of course, about electronic communication. Rice encourages faculty and students to teach and work with as intellectual sharers in an adventure.”