Whether Sheena Harvey is juggling her myriad responsibilities as director of theFitness and Recreational Sports Departmentat the w88 online casino, Reno or working with students in the classroom, she holds those around her to a straightforward set of standards:
- Showing up.
- Being present during connections.
- Acting with kindness.
- Holding others accountable.
The standards established a cornerstone for her own professional development, as she rose steadily during the past 22 years from a student job in the Campus Recreation and Wellness Program to her promotion in 2021 to leadership of the Fitness and Recreational Department. In that position, she oversees facilities including the E.L. Wiegand Fitness Center, John Sala Fields and Lombardi Pool as well as intramural and club sports.
Those same standards inform Harvey’s relationships with students in the special-topics course, “Race, Sports and Culture,” that she created and is teaching this spring in the University’sDepartment of Gender, w88, and Identity.
Harvey is mindful of her position as a role model and mentor. After all, she learned first-hand the importance of good mentors — and the dangers of false friends — as a first-generation college student who navigated dorm life, financial aid and purchases of homes and cars.
“I had to learn that it was OK to allow others to help, to receive advice and direction from those who traveled the road before,” Harvey said.
But it’s not always as simple as that.
“It’s hard sometimes to know if others are helping because they genuinely want to, or if they are looking for something in return at some point. I often navigate as a lone wolf for protection of myself and peace,” Harvey said. “The other side of that is that I have some great people in my life, in my family, in my workspaces, and within the community who help assure me that the energy I put out is what I will get back.”
Among those great people in Harvey’s life is Marsha Dupree, who worked in the University’s Financial Aid office as an advisor when Harvey arrived on campus as an undergraduate in 2002. (Dupree retired in 2014 as assistant director of theMcNair Scholars w88 slot onlineprogram.)
“Mrs. Marsha showed up for us, she connected us to the community and she made sure we all had somewhere to go and somewhere to eat if we couldn’t make it home during the holidays and breaks during the semester,” Harvey said.
And there is Paul Mitchell, the coordinator of recruitment and retention in theReynolds School of Journalism. He served as advisor of the University’s Black Student Organization during Harvey’s undergraduate years. He stayed in close contact as she earned graduate degrees and spread her wings into the wider community with roles such as her current service as vice chair of the Parks and Recreation Commission for City of Sparks.
Eleni Oikonomidoy, professor of multicultural education in theCollege of Education and Human Development, played an important role as a mentor and Harvey’s advisor while she earned her master’s degree in Equity and Diversity in Academic Settings. Oikonomidoy also served chair for Harvey’s doctoral committee as she completed her dissertation, “First-Generation Low-Income U.S. Black College Women’s Social Capital.”
Harvey’s professional successes don’t mean that she doesn’t continue to face challenges in her demanding, high-stress career.
“I walk around as Black woman serving in a leadership role, in which sometimes I can tell and feel that others don’t think I’m qualified to do the work, just because of what I look like,” she said. “That’s something that I must overcome daily. It’s a challenge, and I’m up for the challenge every day.”
Harvey draws support from#w88 sports betting app, a faculty network that developed during the pandemic years.
“This group is important to have on our campus because people need support, they need a sounding board and they need an opportunity to engage with people who look like them and who may or may not have had some of the same lived experiences,” she said.
She looks to extend that support to a new generation through her work to revitalize the University’s Black Alumni Association.
“Black History and accomplishments should not only be celebrated in the month of February,” Harvey said. “Having an active Black Alumni Association would create an additional resource to educate and engage our campus community.”
Harvey is fond of quoting the author Maya Angelou, “When you get, you give. And when you learn, you teach.”
Hundreds of students with whom she has worked in the past two decades, meanwhile, have their favorite Sheena Harvey quote, the one that ends many of her emails and pep talks: “Go be great!”
Harvey’s commitment to bettering the community through using her experiences to help others, her personal investment and collaborative involvement in the community and her passionate dedication to students and others are some of the myriad ways in which she embodiesThe Wolf w88 online sports betting Way.
