January 2019

AERA and the Spencer Foundation are jointly sponsoring a formal mentoring and professional development opportunity to address the unique challenges faced by scholars with disabilities/disabled scholars seeking to become tenure-track faculty members. This program was developed to meet the long-standing underrepresentation of disabled scholars in the academy.

Up to 20 early career scholars and doctoral candidates will be selected to participate in the Pre-Conference Seminar for Early Career Scholars with Disabilities/Disabled Scholars, a two-day seminar to be held April 4–5 in Toronto, immediately before the start of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting. After the seminar, the scholars will work with virtual mentors in a Virtual Mentor Program to continue their professional development and networking. 

• Doctoral candidates and early career scholars seeking to participate in this opportunity can click here for the call for applications. Applications received by February 11 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time will receive full consideration.
• Current faculty, emeritus faculty, and administrators who are interested in serving as virtual mentors to seminar participants can click here to learn more and to register for the program. 

The virtual mentoring component is a short-term, low-commitment service opportunity for scholars and administrators. The goals of virtual mentoring are fourfold:

• To expand the professional network of both established scholars and selected participants who are promising scholars in their respective fields;
• To make explicit the implicit expectations of the academic job market;
• To improve academic job outcomes for disabled scholars; and
• To proactively harness the capacity of emerging and established scholars to positively influence the systemic challenges faced by disabled individuals in the academy at all levels.

To meet this need, the program is seeking mentors, both with and without disabilities, representing all research areas within the AERA membership.