{"id":12943,"date":"2026-06-11T08:47:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/?p=12943"},"modified":"2026-06-11T08:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:51:11","slug":"spotlight-a-conversation-with-2026-graduate-mentoring-award-recipient-christine-koggel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/2026\/spotlight-a-conversation-with-2026-graduate-mentoring-award-recipient-christine-koggel\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight: A Conversation with 2026 Graduate Mentoring Award Recipient Christine Koggel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Spotlight: A Conversation with 2026 Graduate Mentoring Award Recipient Christine Koggel\n\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n
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Christine Koggel is a Philosophy Professor<\/em> and the Graduate Supervisor in the Department of Philosophy. A leading scholar in moral and political philosophy, feminist theory, and global justice, her research examines issues of equality, power, social relationships, and justice in both local and global contexts. Alongside her extensive contributions to philosophical scholarship, Koggel is deeply committed to graduate education and mentorship, supporting students throughout their academic and professional development.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sat down with Christine to learn more about her role as Graduate Supervisor in the Department of Philosophy and to discuss her recent recognition as the recipient of a Graduate Mentoring Award. She shared her perspectives on effective mentorship, the importance of fostering supportive academic communities, and the rewards of working closely with graduate students.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you had to explain what you do as a grad supervisor to someone outside academia, how would you describe it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> The Graduate Supervisor role demands year round attention – from recruiting new Masters student prospects in the fall and winter to advising and welcoming new MA students in the summer and fall to following up with second year MA students to advise and guide them in completing the MA program by the end of their second year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What first got you interested in supervising graduate students in philosophy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> I really enjoy the process of graduate students identifying a research project and then through meetings and feedback watching each student grow into the project to make it their own.\u00a0 The process begins in the Research Seminar that all first year MA students take in the Winter semester. The goal of the Research Seminar is to have them explore, identify, and delineate the research project they will go on to write in their second year. To have them take ownership of their own work and then work hard with their supervisors to produce the best thesis or research essay possible is a joy to witness each and every time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you think about really good mentorship, what does that look like to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> I think good mentorship is about reaching out to discuss the kind of mentorship that works best. Each student is different and has different ways of doing their best work. In supervising students, for example, I ask them to tell me how they work best — whether they want lots of supervision with some pushing, or a bit more hands off to let them work independently, or setting deadlines to help them keep the process moving along. The everyday work of advising MA students requires mentorship that is open and honest – not always telling them what they want to hear by way of requirements or deadlines but being clear on what will work to have them complete the MA program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Has the way you mentor students changed over time?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> I have always been a hands on Graduate Supervisor – from reaching out to prospective students to tell them how unique and great our two year MA program is, to working with the Graduate Administrator to assign TAships, to meeting with the first and second year students early in the fall semester to make them aware of opportunities, resources, timelines to completion, and courses that allow them to meet the requirements. I have come to know the ins and outs of rules and regulations so mentoring isn’t as difficult as it was when I first took on the role of Graduate Supervisor.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your philosophical work engages with justice and relationships. How does that shape how you mentor?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> The research I do on theories of justice and care shape how I think about relationships – especially relationships of power and oppression. I hope my research also shapes the relationships I have with graduate students in both the MA and EPAF PhD programs. My research interests enter into the courses I teach and the research projects that I supervise. There are times when particular relationship dynamics in a classroom get in the way of some students being able to speak up. I try to be aware of these dynamics and to discuss them in and outside the classroom in ways that are sensitive to those dynamics and the effects of them. For example, if a student or two reports that aggressive behavior by another student stops them from speaking up and thwarts their learning process, I have been known to discuss the article “Philosophy as a Blood Sport” that explains how women, for example, have been and continue to be marginalized in the classroom and in the discipline of philosophy more generally by longstanding perceptions of philosophy as a discipline that is about tearing down arguments rather than building them together.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Are there any values or ideas that guide how you support your students?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> The values that guide me most in advising, teaching, and supervision are commitment and dedication to the success of our students and the MA program in general. Perhaps the most important value that guides me in supporting students is respect. To follow up on the previous question about relationships, if students fail to listen to or hear what classmates are trying to say, I explain that the very topics we discuss in many of my courses – discrimination, inequality, injustice, oppression – call on the values of respect, compassion, patience, and attentiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you stay supportive while also setting boundaries for yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> Setting boundaries is not always easy. It does depend on the support that is needed. Often it is about referring students to people who are better positioned than I am to help with mental health issues, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s a piece of advice you find yourself giving students most often?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> When students tell me that they are struggling with deadlines in their course work or research projects, the piece of advice I give them most often is to encourage them to reach out to their instructors\/supervisors to keep them in the loop and to work with those instructors to set timelines to try to ensure they can complete their work. I give this advice to my own students and supervisees, but it often involves reaching out to them first and advising them to keep the doors of communication open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What keeps you motivated to keep doing this work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koggel:<\/strong> There are a bunch of things that keep me motivated: hearing from students how much they appreciate the individualized attention that our MA program provides; having the support of colleagues and administrators in the department; \u00a0having students successfully complete their theses and research essays; being at convocation as our students cross the stage; having our own students (undergraduate, MA, and EPAF PhD) be awarded university wide medals and prestigious external grants; writing letters that succeed in getting our students into some of the best PhD programs in Canada and the U.S.; maintaining contact with our graduates to hear about their successes after finishing at Carleton; and reading the amazing things that students have written in testimonials about our MA program and in letters that supported my getting the Faculty Graduate Mentorship award! It was truly humbling to have so many students present at the award ceremony and to have excerpts from their letters read at the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We sat down with Christine to learn more about her role as Graduate Supervisor in the Department of Philosophy and to discuss her recent recognition as the recipient of a Graduate Mentoring Award. She shared her perspectives on effective mentorship, the importance of fostering supportive academic communities, and the rewards of working closely with graduate students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":527,"featured_media":12799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-spotlight"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12943"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13042,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12943\/revisions\/13042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}