By MARTY LEVINE
Editor’s note: “Lasting Lessons” presents stories from faculty and staff about an educational moment that made the most impact on their lives – as a student or an instructor, inside a classroom or out, here at Pitt or elsewhere, formal or impromptu, between friends or even at a bad moment – something that challenged or changed them. Look for more Lasting Lessons in future editions of the University Times.
Amani Attia, teaching professor, director of undergraduate studies for the Arabic major, Less-Commonly-Taught Languages Center, Department of Linguistics, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
On a shelf behind Amani Attia’s head, in her office in the Cathedral of Learning, sits a portrait of Professor Nur Sherif in London, around the time that Elizabeth II was crowned queen of England, Attia says. The semi-formal, black and white portrait captures Sherif, of the University of Alexandria, Egypt, in dark coif and wide-brimmed hat, as if ready to attend the coronation herself.
“It was from her that I learned the importance of the written word,” Attia says.
Prior to college, Attia had attended the Scottish School of Alexandria, which taught English first, Arabic second. Then she studied English as an undergraduate at the University of Alexandria, built in the Quartier Grec, so the campus is as much a mix of modernist and Greek-influenced buildings as Pitt. The English department in the School of Arts had only about 30 students, and up to this time its faculty had been populated by overly strict British instructors, “so no one could earn an A,” Attia recalled. “We would have Bs, Bs, Bs.”
But it was 1984 and a new faculty member had arrived, the department’s first non-British chair, Nur Sherif, raised here by her Irish mother and Egyptian father. Attia’s neighbors, a British family, had recommended that she study under Sherif, saying: “She will teach you everything about life.” But first, that meant interviewing at Alexandria for the graduate program — with Nur, whom she had never met.
“She was going to interview me in English and I was so frantic,” Attia said. But then, a reprieve: Attia learned that Sherif had had a small accident and would not be able to attend the interview. Instead, another faculty asked the questions. But there was an unknown woman sitting nearby.
The interview proceeded as expected, until the faculty interviewer suggested Attia come to the graduate program to study English poetry. Attia wanted to study Henry James — and she said so. Was her acceptance in doubt?
That’s when the woman sitting off to the side spoke up: “I like this lady. She knows what she wants.”
Nur Sherif had been in attendance after all. “She told me, ‘Whenever you want, come and see me,’ ” Attia recalls. “If there are any lasting lessons in my life they would come from this lady.”
Learning traditional Arabic rhetoric prior to college, Attia says, “they always tell you the more you write, and the more redundant you are, the better. For instance, to say you are brave and courageous is perfectly fine.” However, “it’s really bad in English,” Attia learned from Sherif.
The lessons continued throughout the years, as Sherif became Attia’s graduate advisor: “What is meaningful in your head is not always meaningful to the reader. Whatever you put on paper has to send a clear message ... and it’s also a responsibility.”
Sherif taught her, in her writing, to be “sensible” — as opposed to emotional. “Mediterranean people are very emotional,” Attia explained. “She said, ‘This doesn’t work in academia.’ To this day when I am writing something, she is talking to me in my head: ‘Really? Do you really want to write this? Is this a very good sentence?’” Sherif’s voice remains there, “every time I am writing something, every time I am editing something.
“I also learned ... that ethics have nothing to do with religion. She was a very ethical person but she was not really religious. I learned it’s about what you think about the world around you and how you want to leave this world. Be kind to everyone.”
Sherif eventually connected her with a visiting professor who was offering a scholarship for the University College Dublin, when Attia was working toward her PhD. Sherif convinced her to study Anglo-Irish literature. Sherif had earlier helped her get a British Council scholarship for her master’s degree to study Henry James’ novels and short stories focused on artists and writers.
Attia can still picture the two of them sitting in Sherif’s last Alexandria apartment, a very British affair with her Irish mother’s bookcase and armchair. “She would sit there and listen and listen. It made me feel very important — this woman was listening to me.”
Once in the United States — where Sherif’s lessons about Western writing made even more sense, Attia says — she would time her trips home for the cooler weather of winter. Sherif would greet her with her favorite Egyptian mangos, preserved in her freezer.
“She was very level-headed and I learned a little bit of that from her” as well, Attia says. In more recent years, she has created a Facebook page for former students of Nur Sherif, which includes photos from the apartment and from campus. She even gave her daughter a form of the name Nur.
Now, when she is grading papers in the Cathedral of Learning, she can see Sherif’s hand writing through her own: “When she didn’t like something, it was in block letters” written on a student’s paper. “Today, if I am not liking something, it is in block letters.”
Martha Ndung’u, assistant professor of global health and health equity for the Grace Lamsam Program for the Underserved, Department of Pharmacy & Therapeutics, School of Pharmacy.
Martha Ndung’u walked into the Allegheny County Jail as a third-year pharmacy student, ready to offer the inmates what she assumed they’d want: information about how to prevent drug addictions. “I thought I’d walk in, I’d teach about health education, period.”
She was just beginning a year-long fellowship given by the Pittsburgh Institute for Equity-Centered Leadership — and she had proposed teaching this topic inside the jail.
Instead, she quickly realized, “They wanted to hear about the intricacies of the brain. They wanted homework. They wanted to know the molecule, which part of the brain does that activate? Serotonin, dopamine, what does this mean? They said, I saw this on TV, I watched this movie, does this actually happen?
“I didn’t think anybody really wanted to know this. I had to go home and create a whole new four-week series, now that I knew what they wanted. It really flipped over what I thought teaching was actually supposed to look like.”
Following the lead of the students, on the other side of the bars, was more than successful. “Every week more people came in,” Ndung’u says, and she expanded the lessons from once to three times a week. When a new inmate would join the lessons, they would ask a question and one of the earlier participants would say, “No, she actually said that and it’s like this,” she recalls. “They almost started teaching themselves, and passing the knowledge around. And that is a beautiful exchange to see.”
She expanded the lessons from the men’s to the women’s side of the jail. “It was the first time that they really had time to think about (addiction and drugs): Why did I use it and how did it affect me? How do I prevent my kids from using it?”
“They were so knowledge hungry. To this day it makes me so excited to teach, too, to put together the materials for people. Whether it’s them or my students now, you never know what people want to know about. Today that is my first question when I go into scenarios.
“No wonder I ended up being a professor. I thought I’d be a pharmacist — which I am. But it definitely made this a career option.
“I’ve always been passionate about health disparities,” she adds “Maybe if I helped to educate the inmates they’d be able to advocate for themselves more.
Today, she directs the Lamsam program in educating and treating underserved patient populations here and internationally, as well as other such programs. “You can learn a lot about what someone else is learning by the questions they have to ask,” she says.
Jesse Mullen, academic advisor, undergraduate programs, School of Business
Jesse Mullen had often dreamed of opening a bar.
“At an early age, I already had a knack for business,” Mullen says. By high school, he was entering marketing competitions. Being a sports marketing aficionado was an earlier dream, so why a bar? “I thought it would be a cool place to hang out, and I’d make a lot of money doing it.”
Business was an obvious major for Mullen at Washington and Jefferson University. In his senior year in 2004, he took an entrepreneurial business class, and the owner of 84 Lumber, Joe Hardy, came to speak.
There might have been other speakers that year, but Mullen cannot recall a single one — only Hardy made an impression.
His mother had actually worked for 84 Lumber, but Mullen was hardly aware of Hardy, his title, or his other forays into business locally. All he heard was the message: “You could only learn so much in a classroom. If you actually want to pursue a dream, go and take a job, any job, in that industry, so you can experience it firsthand.”
After graduation, Mullen quickly found work as a server at a now-defunct bar-poolhall-café in the South Side, where it was his job to serve the 20 or so pool tables with drinks and food. He met a few Steelers there — it was a popular spot for a while.
But he was also able to learn what was behind the business, and he was none too inspired with confidence for his future as a bar owner.
The bar business “is very volatile,” he realized. “It’s hard to predict what’s going to be successful. It’s hard to figure out the target market. Where can I put this bar? What will be the theme of the bar? Who will we serve? Where can I get the investors?”
With the knowledge that it could take 10 to 20 years to become financially stable, “that’s when I shifted gears.”
He also took another Hardy message to heart: “I remember him saying ‘I’ve never worked a day in my life,’ because he enjoyed what he did.” If you don’t enjoy your work, Hardy continued, what is the point of having all that money?
“I realized that money isn’t my motivator,” Mullen says. “Having a stress-free life and helping people is how I created my career path.
“Every student I meet, that’s the advice I give them. Professors can only tell you so much. Books can only tell you so much. YouTube can only tell you so much. Even if you’re just job-shadowing for a week or two — get in the building.” Get a job in the industry, or an internship, to experience it yourself.
“It’s not just about finding out what you like to do,” Mullen says. “It’s just as important to find out what you don’t like. And the only way to find that out is to go and do it.”
How do his students react? “Usually they hadn’t thought about it. Mostly students come in wide-eyed and want to do all these things and want to double and triple major and are not talking about the end of the process.
“I tell them, if you’re thinking about fashion, go work in a clothing store. If you want to work with athletes, look for volunteer or internship opportunities in our athletic department.”
Sure, he still follows dreams, but he does so from some experience. Mullen also wanted to be a high-school basketball coach, so he worked as an assistant basketball coach for a middle school, which involved lots of traveling, and a lot of working time after 5 p.m. Mullen has two young children at home, so his work-life balance remains extra-important. “Now, when I get older,” he muses, “maybe I’ll go back to coaching.”
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.