In an essay titled “Making Mentors,” written for the Journal of Public Relations Research by Bey-Ling Sha, Dean of the College of Communication at Cal State Fullerton, Sha shares her philosophy on mentorship.

Mentoring often comes in the form of advice given by one person to another, usually on a topic or situation in which the giver of the advice has more experience than the recipient, Sha wrote in the 2021 essay.

However — and this is key — the power to transform an advice-giver into a mentor belongs to the advice-receiver, by acting on or considering the advice, or by “absorbing it into their ways of thinking, seeing, or being.”

Other mentors don’t give advice at all, Sha wrote, but are “passive mentors,” meaning the “mentor simply acts as an example within a field, discipline community or institution.”

Sha herself has been bestowed the title of mentor by multiple high-achieving colleagues in her field and by former students who have followed her advice and been influenced by her actions.

For having a profound impact on others in academic circles, Sha was chosen as a Milestones in Mentoring Award honoree by the prestigious Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations.

The Plank Center is a global resource for professionals, educators and students who are interested in furthering their careers in public relations professions.

Sha is receiving the Plank Center’s Bruce K. Berger Mentor Award, which honors educators who have been instrumental in mentoring students and future educators.

Sha is one of six Plank Center award recipients who will be honored at the Milestones in Mentoring Award Gala Nov. 3 in Chicago.

“I was just touched … to think that information that I may have offered to people is something that they found helpful,” Sha said on receiving the award. “I really think of mentoring as being a two-way process. It’s not just about the person giving the advice. It is also about the person receiving the advice and what they choose to do with it.”

Sha was nominated for the award by two longtime colleagues: Patrick Ford, a professional in residence at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications, and  Juan-Carlos Molleda, professor at the Edwin L. Artzt Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.

Molleda, who has known Sha for 20 years, mostly through attending the same conferences, sitting on panels together and serving on the same professional organizations, said Sha has been a “champion for the students” throughout the two decades he’s known her.

“I have been fortunate to have joined Bey-Ling in different activities in different parts of the nation,” Molleda said. “We share the expertise we have and the experiences we have with others.”

When Sha accepts her award at the gala, she will be introduced by Jemalyn Chavez Griffin, a former student of Sha and now assistant professor of practice for the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Sha was Griffin’s professor at San Diego State where Griffin was a student majoring in public relations from 2008 to 2011.

Sha was also Griffin’s adviser in the Public Relations Society of America.

Griffin said Sha served as her mentor both by example and by the giving of sound advice.

“Being a first-generation Filipino American student and as a fellow Asian American, it was just inspirational for me to be able to identify with somebody who is part of my same culture, and so I really look up to her, not only for her academic career but as a woman leader within higher education.”

When she takes the stage during the gala to introduce Sha, Griffin plans to share a story from her time at San Diego State, when she was on verge of dropping out in order to get a job and serve as caregiver to her ailing mother.

“I was struggling to pay bills and Dr. Sha was the one who said, ‘You have to stay in school because this is the best way to change the trajectory over your family,’” Griffin said. “I was about to drop out and she really convinced me to stay the course, and without that, I would not be a professor today. I was so honored when she asked me to be her mentee presenter in Chicago.

About a week after receiving the Milestones in Mentoring Award, Sha will travel to Texas to be inducted into the Public Relations Society of America’s College of Fellows, one of PRSA’s highest honors.

Sha has received numerous awards in her field and is active in a variety of mentoring programs, including the Institute for Diverse Leaderships, a collaborative effort between the Association for Education and Journalism and Mass Communication and the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Sha contributed to the 11th edition of “Cutlip and Center’s Effective Public Relations,” one of the world’s leading textbooks in the field for 70 years.

Prior to becoming a full-time educator, Sha worked as a public affairs officer for the U.S. Census Bureau, where she helped oversee the promotional campaign for the 2000 census.

The campaign won a 2001 Silver Anvil Award of Excellence from PRSA.

“I’m eternally optimistic that the world can be a better place, and that necessitates each of us being the best person that we can be both to ourselves and to other people, and I think that is really what drives me,” Sha said. “It has been an incredible journey.”

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