Portrait of Marilyn Lockhart

Marilyn Lockhart

Marilyn Lockhart, a professor in the Department of Education and director of accreditation and program leader for the Adult and Higher Education program, has been named the 2020 Women’s Faculty Caucus Distinguished Mentor, which recognizes extraordinary efforts in mentoring junior women faculty in the university and contributing substantially to the career development of one or more women faculty members. The award comes with an honorarium of $2,000.

Over the years Lockhart has developed a reputation for being an extraordinary mentor to young faculty members and setting them up for long-term success at MSU. Lockhart molded the idea for what is now the Center for Faculty Excellence Early Career Mentoring Program, a voluntary program for teaching, research and service mentorship. Expert faculty are identified as mentors, trained in faculty mentoring and then matched with new faculty who are in their first three years at MSU.

According to some alumni of the program, Lockhart’s foresight in establishing the program has touched many faculty members and aided in their achievements at MSU, which bolsters the university as a whole. Since 2005, there have been more than 230 matches and over 90 of the matches have been female faculty. Those who have worked with Lockhart explain she has a gift for bringing a diverse range of individuals together to work together on projects that support new faculty throughout the university. She understands how to engage junior faculty members on navigating and succeeding in a multi-dimensional system.

As a mentor, Lockhart has been described as an empowerment agent — an individual who provides support and access to resources and knowledgeable others and who, more importantly, enables the empowerment of others. She has helped colleagues prepare course materials, develop networks of resourceful coworkers and more. Lockhart has excelled at encouraging female faculty to embrace opportunities to invest in their success through development programs, personal guidance and caring relationships.