UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Charlotte Eubanks, professor of comparative literature, Japanese and Asian studies in the College of the Liberal Arts, is the recipient of the 2025 Rosemary Schraer Mentoring Award.
The Rosemary Schraer Mentoring Award, established in 1994 by family, friends and colleagues of Dr. Rosemary Schraer, a former associate provost of Penn State, is presented each year to a University employee who exemplifies Schraer’s giving of herself as a mentor and who has voluntarily, over a period of time, helped others recognize and achieve their potential. Consideration is given to employees who have a record of outstanding mentoring service that goes beyond the requirements of their employment duties and responsibilities.
Nominators said Eubanks’ mentorship has transformed the academic landscape in numerous ways. Eubanks developed Mentoring for the Future, a program that helps diverse students explore graduate school while providing an intellectual and emotional support network.
“Dr. Eubanks’ attentive guidance of early career scholars encompasses a spectrum of advisees — from undergraduates who are just beginning to contemplate going to graduate school to their own graduate students to a range of early career scholars working to advance themselves professionally — and is characterized by an approach that is both deeply individualized and strategically infrastructural,” a nominator said.
Nominators said Eubanks treats mentees as colleagues and collaborators and is a great listener. A former student said Eubanks encouraged her to enter graduate school and mentored her every step of the way. The student was struggling to find a career path and said Eubanks’ mentorship changed all that. She’s now in a position in a field that she enjoys.
“When I needed to know how to navigate research in Japan or to learn Classical Japanese, Eubanks created a course for it. When I needed rare research materials, they used their research funds,” the former student said. “When I needed to build my professional network, they introduced me to scholars in my field. They walked me through every step of researching, drafting, submitting, and revising an article: a process that is so vital to our field, but which is so rarely made transparent to graduate students in such a thoughtful and detailed manner.”
Eubanks co-directs the Cultivating Early Career Networks program, co-sponsored by Penn State’s Global Asias Initiative and Japan Foundation New York. This program – beginning in Fall 2023 and culminating in the Global Asias 7 Conference in Spring 2025 – brings together 10 early career scholars based in Japan and the United States. Nominators said Eubanks used this program to mentor their students and to advance their academic careers.
“With genuine care for and tireless dedication to the career development and personal growth of all participants, they have created an intellectually stimulating and emotionally supportive environment,” a student said. “We have received guidance on best practices in publishing, as well as direct feedback from cohort members — who may one day become future colleagues — on varied forms of writing, ranging from publication to fellowship and grant application letters.”
Nominators said Eubanks is a tireless mentor who is an inspiration to peers.
“Eubanks is a creative, energetic and visionary scholar who has, for many of us, transformed the very meaning of ‘mentorship’ by example,” a nominator said. “Their time and attention, which they share unstintingly, make every project more fun and meaningful. Mentoring is a way to remake academia by showing how the work we do as scholars not only advances knowledge production as a means of thinking about the world but also creates ways for us to view joy and camaraderie as central to the work that we do as humanists.”