‘Without care, excellence cannot be attained’: Pallavi Banerjee shares how she approaches student mentorship

If you ask Dr. Pallavi Banerjee, PhD, about her experience supervising graduate students, you’ll likely notice that one word comes up regularly: care. 

It’s true Banerjee cares about her students, but more specifically, part of her process is to create communities of care with her students to ensure they know that they are supported and don’t feel alienated. 

“They are at the cutting edge of creating new knowledge,” says Banerjee, referring to her students. “And this knowledge is nurtured through mutual respect, trust, and care. That is what I cherish about working with graduate students.”

Banerjee is the 2024 recipient of the University of Calgary Teaching Award for Graduate Supervision. This recognition is awarded to individuals who demonstrate outstanding contributions to student learning through graduate supervision. Excellence may be demonstrated through mentorship, student engagement, professional development, and respect and inclusion.

Excellence is top of mind for Banerjee, but not in the way you may assume. Along with the result of her work as a researcher and supervisor, Banerjee is mindful of the process used to attain what she has set out to achieve.

“I feel like I have moved to just being this educator and mentor that is invested in excellence but in a way that centres care, to thinking about how we can arrive at that excellence with care, compassion, and empathy, and being mindful about where students, and the community that we’ve built, are coming from, what their needs are and upholding their contributions to building the intellectual community.”

This perspective extends to way she views mentorship. 

Most are aware of the ways students benefit from the guidance and knowledge of their supervisors. However, Banerjee is clear that each student she has supervised, both undergraduate and graduate, has helped to shape her as an educator. She is genuinely motivated to help students meet their goals and the energy she expends is reciprocated.

“Mentorship is a mutual process where you are taking in students who you want to see grow and thrive, not only survive,” says Banerjee, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts.

Banerjee’s academic background and research has focused on inclusion and marginalized communities. She is quick to give credit to the feminist mentors who nurtured her interests while she was a graduate student. Paying this support and recognition forward is a way to invest in the scholars of tomorrow, which will benefit the greater community, including the people who may never have access to the university campus. 

“For inclusion to have any meaning, we need really step out of the university walls and work with communities that do not have access to these halls and these premises. The intellectual life needs to go beyond the university.”