By MARTY LEVINE

Editor’s note: The University Times is writing a series on the most recent winners of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award for Staff. This is the fourth installment.

Excellent Mentor Award winner: Emily Bell, senior director of human resources, Office of the Executive Senior Vice Chancellor Finance & Operations

Emily Bell’s mentoring efforts often come through a community of practice she created during the past two and a half years in the Finance & Operations office.

“It’s a great place to learn from each other,” Bell says, and to ask each other questions, as well as to take part in professional development opportunities. “It’s a really good opportunity to resources-share because we’re only as good as information we share with each other.”

The group meets every other month to hear presentations from subject specialists and discuss specific topics, such as medical leave or onboarding, and maintains a website to gather best practices.

Even working in the same office “can feel a little isolated, and I make sure folks feel they are part of a larger group,” Bell says — a group whom they can ask for advice. “We try to use it so we can network with our colleagues,” sharing challenges and useful tools for solutions.

“It gives people the opportunity to learn and grow in their careers,” she adds. “You learn just as much from your mentee” as you do from a mentor, Bell says. “I’ve learned tons of stuff from folks who believe I’m their mentor.”

Bell’s tips for being a mentor include “being open minded; knowing that you don’t necessarily have all the answers; being candid with the mentee.” And when meeting together, certainly put away all devices and distractions.

Mentors can make mistakes, of course — especially overloading, she says. “It’s important to always have healthy boundaries and work/home relationship so you are not taking on too many responsibilities yourself.” Such boundaries help reinforce that “your empathy doesn’t become a detriment” to yourself, she adds.

Despite all her mentoring experience, Bell says, “I was really surprised” at the award nomination. Bell is headed for her 15th anniversary at Pitt in June, starting in Panther Central, then working in Pitt’s student housing office before joining HR.

“How incredibly grateful I am to the individuals who nominated me,” she said. “I feel so gratified they think of me as a mentor. I care so much about and have learned so much from them.”

Excellent Mentor Award winner: Shallegra Moye, director of educational enrichment & transition programs, School of Education, Office of the Dean

Shallegra Moye says her own mentoring relationships with students are not formal, but instead are “very organic. It’s a purpose. It’s a calling. I know that this is what the Lord has placed me on this earth to do.”

When she teaches, including classes in the Department of Africana Studies in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, “I always offer myself to students after the course is over. If you need something, come and reach out. I have a bevy of students who are in my office any day of the week.” Or they may go out for coffee, lunch or a walk around campus. She is often checking: “How are you? Are you taking care of yourself? Are you finding the right balance between your course load and the rest of life?

“Mentorship is this wonderful way to be in relationship with people in a broad way or in an in-depth way,” Moye says. And it is all right to let the mentee determine what the mentoring relationship will look like, she adds.

“My purpose is to serve people, to serve young people especially,” Moye says. “My social capital and my social network is for the benefit of serving others. It’s for me to give away, to really support young people into coming into their own.

“I am learning just as much as they are,” she concludes. “The School of Education has set me up for that.

“When I was alerted that I was being nominated” for the chancellor’s award, Moye says, “I was really moved to tears. I have been uplifted in ways that I have not anticipated.

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” she says. “I am because we are. I am finding it is all possible at Pitt. I am a manifestation of all of the things that are possible at Pitt.”

Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.

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