Chapter 13: Mentored in Self-Efficacy

I was born in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, Egypt. In the mid-1960s and 1970s, Heliopolis was a developing upper-middle-class neighborhood, with Indian Laurel and Royal Poinciana trees on both sides of the streets, mid-rise residential buildings, and a pleasing architectural environment. Residents of Heliopolis were generally well-educated professionals, whose lifestyle was a happy medium between modernity and tradition. I grew up sharing the middle-class values of my generation: education, hard work, fairness, and, most importantly, empathy, which was a focus of my parents’ teachings to my brother and me.

Currently, I am in my fifth year as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Research Methodology (ELRM) at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), and I have just submitted my portfolio for promotion and tenure. My appointment with the department of ELRM, FAU, was a result of a personal and professional journey across time, places, people, cultures, and ideas. An unintended but welcomed result of this journey was my assuming the role of “bridge person.” According to Merchant and Shoho (2006), a bridge person is a leader who adopts a social justice stance and is “committed to creating a bridge between themselves and others, for the purpose of improving the lives of all those with whom they work” (p. 380).