Established in 2017, the GADE Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Social Work Doctoral Students is given to a current or retired faculty member who has a sustained and demonstrable record of exemplary commitment to and achievement of excellence, innovation, and effectiveness in mentoring of doctoral students and creating an environment that is inclusive and supportive of diverse doctoral students from underrepresented communities.

In 2018 the GADE Board of Directors voted to rename this award the Donna Harrington Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Social Work Doctoral Students. Donna Harrington was a leader in doctoral education and in GADE. She served on the GADE Steering Committee (now Board of Directors) from 2013-2016 and was treasurer from 2014-2016. She was also one of the principal editors of the GADE Quality Guidelines for PhD Programs.

Mentorship was not what Donna did, but who she was as a person. She served as the Associate Dean for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Education at the University of Maryland School of Social Work where she mentored numerous PhD students. She chaired over 30 dissertations during her career. Emblematic of her mentorship, Donna made a quilt for each of those students. She chose to spend the last days of her life working with and mentoring her students. Dr. Donna Lee Harrington passed away on March 30, 2018.

2024 Award Nominations Now Open 

*Nominations open annually on September 15 and are due on October 31 at 11:59pm Eastern. Be sure to subscribe to our Email Updates to be the first to know when applications are live!

2023: Dr. Kimberly Bender
Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver

2022: Dr. Phyllis Solomon
School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania

2021: Dr. Cynthia G. S. Franklin
Steve Hicks School of Social Work, University of Texas at Austin

2020: Dr. Sydney Hans
Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, The University of Chicago

2019: Dr. Diana DiNitto
Steve Hicks School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin

2018: Dr. Donna Harrington
School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore

2017: Dr. Stephanie Robert*
Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2017 Honorable Mention: Dr. Fariyal Ross-Sheriff*
School of Social Work, Howard University

*Prior to 2018, this award was named the Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring.