January 8, 2020
Heidi Schumacher, staff coordinator for the HSI Pathways program and a faculty member in GWS and English, is one of the 2019 recipients of the prestigious Don Dorsey Excellence in Mentoring awards.
This award is presented to faculty, staff, and/or administrators who have made exceptional contributions to mentoring at CSUN. The first recipient was the award’s namesake, Dr. Don Dorsey. The award was established in May 1998 by the Faculty Mentor Program and EOP in recognition of Professor Dorsey’s invaluable contributions to mentoring and mentor training at CSUN.
Heidi was recognized by this program for her exceptional contributions to mentoring students through the HSI Pathways program. This is a Mellon-funded project that partners three Hispanic Serving Institutions (including CSUN) with five research universities in an effort to boost the number of underrepresented students who earn a PhD and go on to careers as professors. So far, under Heidi’s direction, CSUN has graduated two cohorts of students, all of whom were offered slots in prestigious graduate programs across the nation. The third cohort is busy preparing their PhD applications with Heidi’s guidance. Her work with these students, including a number of EOP students, has taken enormous amounts of time, commitment and organization, exemplifying the kind of holistic, intense mentoring that the Don Dorsey award is designed to celebrate.