By MARTY LEVINE
Ever since Delo Blough started her career at a small Virginia college — helping those born outside the U.S. navigate the shifting tides of immigration enforcement here — such individuals have been a constant presence in her life, Blough says.
At that time her young children thought “it was normal to have people from China and Kenya and France in and out of the house. I’m just grateful that I have been given that gift of knowing people from all over the world and I’m glad my children have been given that gift too.”
As she approaches her retirement from a 35-year career helping immigrants to study, research and work in higher education — the last seven as Pitt’s director of the Office of International Services — she takes the long view: “I see history as an ebb and flow, and those who have experienced the real difficulty and anxiety of immigration with this (federal) administration, to this degree: I have a little bit more of a perspective on it. We will come back out of this. The real difficulty is that we don’t know how many people are going to be harmed in this process. There are people being harmed unfairly in the process. There’s just a lot of anxiety now.”
“I cannot say enough about Delo and her service to Pitt over the last seven years and to the field for considerably longer than that,” wrote Jeff Whitehead, interim executive director of Pitt Global, in an appreciation. “She has served as a mentor to countless staff members, worked tirelessly through crises and always put the core mission — the care and shepherding of our international population — above herself.”
Blough will be honored for her work at a retirement reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Feb. 20 in the Frick Fine Arts Building.
Blough originally got into the field because she “wanted to give people a chance to have good lives in this country,” she says. After earning an undergraduate degree in social work, Blough began to work in conflict mediation, but thought the lawyers on her team were having all the fun. After earning a law degree herself, she began working with immigrants where she was living, in Washington, D.C., which had a lot of refugees from recent civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador at the time.
“It was a good use of my people skills that I also used in mediation, but it was also really hard work,” she recalls. “And I was having nightmares every night from the stories I was hearing from everyone. I didn’t think that was sustainable.” So she moved into higher education, eventually spending 15 years at James Madison University prior to joining Pitt.
“In many ways the immigration rules are the same as when I started 35 years ago — 90 percent of them,” Blough says. “The way the rules are implemented is different in different administrations” of the federal government. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for instance, Muslims were hit with new rules and enforcement. But universities were also for the first time charged with being gatekeepers for students coming into the country, she says.
A new database was introduced that tracked transfer students — one factor that actually aided higher ed, she says.
But schools were now required to hire designated officials to report to the government “any time the student is doing something they shouldn’t be doing,” according to immigration rules. Most foreign-student visas do not allow them to work except at their school or as part of an internship, for instance. Policing student behavior — until then the province of the government, she says — was “not something we wanted to do. We were there to help them, not to hurt them.”
Immigrants’ desire for permanent residence status is the cause of the most anxiety she sees today: “When you are on a visa, you can’t travel freely and you can’t make plans far into the future, you don’t know if you’re going to be able to stay.”
Sara Jones, OIS’s associate director — who will succeed Blough — helped to bring her to Pitt after knowing Blough through their work on regional conferences of NAFSA (originally the National Association of Foreign Student Advisors).
“I thought she would be a really good boss, so I encouraged her to apply — and she was,” Jones says. “She was a really good model for me and for everyone in the office, for how to be a supervisor. She is very clear in her expectations. She’s very open to listening to new ideas and, the most important part: she allows all of us to be human. She allows all of us to make mistakes,” and to help each other correct them.
In fact, Jones recalls joking with Blough that they ought to create a presentation called “Mistakes Were Made,” only to have Blough team with her to actually create the presentation — now one of the more popular offerings at their regional NAFSA conferences. “She is doing for our audience what she has done for us — make it a safe space” to talk about, and find solutions for, issues they all face.
“She also was able to keep in mind the humanity of what we do,” Jones says, despite work that involves complicated rules and paperwork. “She does not forget that there is an actual human being behind all these things and we have to do what we can to help that human being... She was very compassionate.”
As one example, Jones says, “she made herself available to talk to anyone about really tough things that were happening in the immigration world,” including students last March whose visas were revoked. “She made them feel heard, even if there’s nothing positive to tell them. The fact that she talked to them made them feel welcomed and wanted at the institution.
“Even through all of that she has firmly established OIS as an authority in immigration matters. People trust us and that is key.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jones says, “she made a point to continue the office culture we all had.” Blough sent to staffers’ homes a box with holiday decoration craft items to make, which they all did together on screen. “She did that type of thing over and over again,” Jones says. As Jones takes over for Blough, she adds, “I will be asking, ‘What would Delo do?’ I will be reminding myself of the humanity of the situations. Also, I’m going to channel Delo and make sure we have time for fun.”
Blough says she is not planning to put aside all her work upon retirement. “One of the things I love most about my job, these days, is helping people get green cards,” especially if they qualify under government criteria as an outstanding professor or researcher. “I get to know all of these incredible researchers around our campus, and it’s a whole lot of fun. I’m going to continue to do this, not just for Pitt.”
She also hopes to revive the international student leadership conference she ran for many years prior to the pandemic, and plans to travel to Kenya this fall to visit a few former international students she knew from her work years before. She was recognized last year by her regional NAFSA group with the creation of the Delo Blough Award for Outstanding Contributions to International Education — which was awarded to her first.
“My overall hope for everyone … is for the stability, and not just for people getting green cards. The level of anxiety has just been off the charts for the whole immigrant community.
“My staff — soon Sara’s staff — can answer virtually any question about statuses we are given,” including work visas. “We are not attorneys for the individuals, so we know when to refer out.” This staff — the best she has ever had, Blough says — will continue to offer “the care and concern for the people they are taking care of.”
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.
Follow the University Times on Facebook.