Frances M. Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award
Former Graduate Division Dean Frances Leslie had a vision years ago to create the DECADE mentor program. Since its inception, over 115 faculty members have served in this role, committing to diversity, equity, and inclusion – and to ensuring an inclusive environment for graduate success.
Beginning in 2019, the Office of Inclusive Excellence solicited nominations from across campus for the DECADE Mentor Excellence Award, and has named this award after the woman whose vision made this all possible: Former Graduate Dean Frances Leslie.
2022 Frances M. Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Awardee: Long Bui
Professor Long Bui, Associate Professor in the Department of Global and International Studies in the School of Social Sciences, is the 2022 Frances Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award recipient. Professor Bui has been a DECADE mentor for the past year, and he has undertaken extensive mentoring activities throughout his time at UCI.
He has been a regular speaker for the DECADE plus program, and the Faculty Advisor for first-gen students to Student Success Initiatives, as well as directing the UCI First-Gen Faculty Initiative. He has been a member of the Thriving in the Academy Faculty Learning community, a UC-Hispanic Serving Institutions-funded program. He has been an active supporter of LIFTED, which is establishing a UCI BA program for incarcerated students. Professor Bui is also on the advisory committee for Social Sciences’ Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Healing Ambassador Program and is the faculty director for the school’s Summer Academic Enrichment Program. As a DECADE mentor, he has designed workshops on “finding an academic family,” being a “scholar activist” and understanding academia’s “hidden curriculum.”
One of Professor Bui’s nominators was a graduate student in another school who summarized that they feel “extremely lucky to have Dr. Bui as a model; [I] strive to become a lifetime mentor to my students, as Dr. Bui is mine.” Other nominators agreed, describing him as “a committed supporter of diverse students across campus,” and “an ally [who is] also a powerful advocate for students.”
The ways that Professor Long Bui has already made a meaningful difference to so many graduate students and early career academics make him an obvious pick for the Frances Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award.
Congratulations Professor Bui for your commitment to diversity and inclusion!
The 2021 Frances Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award recipient is Lonnie Rafael Alcarz, from the Department of Drama in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Professor 
Dr. Sora Han, Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society (CLS), the School of Law, and the Department of African American Studies, and the Director of the PhD Program in Culture and Theory in the School of Humanities, is the 2020 recipient of the Frances M. Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award. Among her many activities, as DECADE Mentor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society, Dr. Han developed programming that impacted students from the undergraduate to graduate level in her department, school, campus, and beyond. For example, in 2015-2016, she received a Graduate Growth Incentive Award to establish a Race and Justice Studies emphasis in CLS as a means of supporting students with these research interests. In 2016-2017, she launched the new emphasis and created a graduate diversity recruitment effort focused on California State University campuses, many of which are Hispanic Serving Institutions. Finally, Dr. Han established a CLS Diversity and Justice speaker series to support junior faculty and doctoral students. The legacy of this transformative work makes Dr. Han highly deserving of this award.
The inaugural awardee of the Frances Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award is Dr. Ann Hironaka, Professor in the Department of Sociology and DECADE Mentor for Sociology since 2011. Dr. Hironaka was nominated by both students and her peers for the extraordinary support she has provided for numerous students as a DECADE Faculty Mentor. Dr. Hironaka has worked tirelessly to institutionalize practices that promote and increase the representation of underrepresented minorities within the academy. Her approach to supporting underrepresented scholars is exhaustive: she provides rich, individualized mentoring to students and junior faculty while serving in leadership positions to develop meaningful institutional interventions.