We are excited to announce that Dr. Rachelle Hole from the School of Social Work in the Faculty of Health and Social Development is the first winner of the UBC Okanagan Graduate Mentorship Award. The UBCO Graduate Mentorship Award recognizes faculty members with a record of excellent mentorship of graduate students under their supervision.
Outstanding mentors are those who:
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- Inspire, guide, and challenge graduate students to achieve excellence and integrity in research and scholarship;
- Provide a supportive environment that stimulates intellectual curiosity, creativity, debate, engagement and dialogue, and progression toward timely completion;
- Encourage graduate students to pursue opportunities to share and disseminate their research and scholarly activities within the research community and beyond academia;
- Support graduate students in ways that are tailored to their individual learning styles, needs, and career/future aspirations;
- Support graduate students in developing their academic and professional competencies to enable transitioning beyond graduate studies.
Dr. Hole exceeds in all of these areas.
Rewrite the Rules Workshop – a partnership between Third Space, the BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, and the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship held on April 3, 2023. The panel consisted of Michelle Hewitt, Bree Sproule, Nadia Galvan-Hernandez, and Spring Hawes.
Dr. Hole is the co-director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship (CIIC), the leader of the Social Inclusion and Equity Research Cluster, a member of the Institute for Community Engaged Research (ICER), and an associated health researcher of the Collaborative RESearch Team to study issues in Bipolar Disorder (CREST.BD). She has over 19 years of experience mentoring students and has consistently created rich, rigorous, and transformative mentorship opportunities for graduate students across various programs and faculties.
Dr. Hole is known for closely collaborating with her graduate students on her own research projects and providing them with opportunities to facilitate workshops and performances, craft policy reports, present at conferences and to communities, support accessibility programming, and participate fully in the research process from data collection to publication. Many graduate students are also provided with unique opportunities to participate in community-engaged research. Dr. Hole has also supported her students through grant and award writing and through presentation competitions such as the Three Minute Thesis Competition. Furthermore, Dr. Hole has connected graduate students with her many community partners, which has furthered their research and career opportunities.
Family Voice Project Team Meeting. Pictured: Dr. Rheanna Robinson, Laura Hockman, Enya Duffield, Dr. Rachelle Hole, and Sue Sterling-Bur.
While mentoring, Dr. Hole considers the unique needs, goals, and lived experiences of each of her students, and tailors her mentorship to support each student. This specific approach is evident through the diverse career paths that Dr. Hole’s graduate students have taken after completing their master’s and doctoral degrees. While some students have moved into private clinical practice, the non-profit sector, or are teaching and working in Universities or Government, many are also active in advocacy efforts for accessibility, health and wellbeing—taking the knowledge learned during their time with Dr. Hole and applying it to improve the world they live in.
Dr. Hole shares more about her approach to graduate mentorship:
My approach to graduate mentorship is grounded in critical disability studies and disability justice, centring access, interdependence, and collective care. I understand mentorship as a relational practice that attends to the structural barriers experienced by disabled, Indigenous, racialized, 2SLGBTQ+, first-generation, and otherwise marginalized graduate students within academic institutions. I work to address these barriers through accessible supervision practices, flexible timelines, transparent expectations, and sustained advocacy to support students’ access and accommodation needs, enabling students to pursue rigorous scholarship while progressing toward degree completion.
I inspire, guide, and challenge graduate students by fostering high expectations for research excellence and integrity, while providing structured and individualized support across all stages of the research process. I emphasize ethical, community-accountable research practices and support students to engage critically with their research topics, strengthening both the quality and integrity of their scholarship. My mentorship is intentionally tailored to individual learning styles, access needs, and career aspirations. I work with students to identify their professional goals—whether academic, community-based, policy-focused, or other—and adapt supervisory approaches accordingly. This includes supporting diverse research timelines, mentoring students with disabilities and students with caregiving responsibilities, and providing guidance that affirms multiple pathways to success.
I also prioritize the development of academic and professional competencies that enable successful transitions beyond graduate studies. This includes mentorship in grant writing, teaching, project management, and career preparation across a diversity of sectors.
Many students continue to collaborate with me beyond degree completion, reflecting sustained mentorship relationships and long-term professional development. My approach to graduate mentorship builds on a long-standing record of supervising and mentoring graduate students, demonstrating continuity and commitment to inclusive, high-impact graduate education.
Thank you, Dr. Hole, for the exceptional contributions that you have made to graduate student mentorship at UBC Okanagan!