Faculty

The SROP 2026 will be mostly offering in-person. The biggest part of the SROP is a small research project in the social sciences that SROP Students conduct in collaboration with a faculty mentor over the course of 8 weeks, from June 8 to July 30, 2026.

As a member of your lab, the SROP Student will have 20 hours per week to devote to their research project. The SROP Student’s Mentor or a senior member of their lab is expected to provide direct mentorship to the student (e.g., weekly one-on-one meetings) and to generally know how the research project is progressing.

We ask that all SROP Faculty complete anti-racism or EDI training before the start of the SROP. The students value knowing that this occurred. More generally, we are partnering with the Toronto Institute for Diversity and Excellence’s (TIDE) to develop our own modules focused on inclusive mentorship. In the meantime, we ask SROP faculty to complete TIDE’s Unconscious Bias modules. In the past, we have worked with Dr. Christopher Taylor and the University of Toronto’s Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office (ARCDO) to conduct our mentor training.

We recognize and encourage the role of all lab members in mentorship, so it is fine if a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow acts as the main mentor for the SROP Student. When a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow will be mentoring an SROP Student, we ask that they complete the anti-racism training with you.

One last important note is that faculty members will not be able to interview their SROP students before agreeing to mentor them. You will be able to review their application materials, but the way that our selection process works makes interviews difficult. We fully respect any of our colleagues who do not feel comfortable with this arrangement–in that case, you should not apply to be a faculty mentor. We regret not being able to accommodate an interview process.

The SROP is designed to give your SROP Student a rich experience, so you can focus on what you do best: Mentoring the next generation of researchers.

As shown in the example schedule to the right, you will have a great deal of support from the SROP. The SROP Students will be getting professional development geared toward graduate school applications and early success in graduate school, in addition to community building among the SROP Students. They also are offered an optional GRE Preparation Course that can be completed through self-paced learning.

• Compose a 250-word description of your Faculty Research Project. This should be a small project that a student could conduct as an independent research project within an 8-week time frame.
• Compose a 150-word Faculty Mentorship Statement that briefly describes your mentorship philosophy and why you want to be a part of the SROP.
• Gather an image file that we may use as a headshot on our website.
• Indicate whether your research project will be in-person, remote, or can be either.

Faculty members who signed up for the 2021 to 2025 SROPs are welcome to reuse their Project Descriptions or Mentorship Statements from last year. Please just reach out to us if you’d like drafts of your past applications!