Sharon Tettegah

I attribute my success to three core values that have anchored everything I have done: determination, drive, and commitment. These are not simply words I have adopted along the way. They are a profound legacy, handed down to me by my grandmother, whose life and character continue to shape who I am and how I show up in the world every single day.

My grandmother was a woman who understood, long before the world was ready to acknowledge it, that excellence was not optional and that giving up was simply not a choice. She did not have access to the institutions or opportunities that I have been fortunate enough to inhabit, yet she carried herself with a dignity, a purposefulness, and a quiet power that I have never forgotten. Watching her taught me that determination is not about the absence of obstacles but about the refusal to be defined by them. That drive is not something the world gives you but something you protect and cultivate from within. And that commitment, real commitment, means showing up fully even when it is hard, even when it is lonely, and even when no one is watching.

I carry her with me into every classroom, every research project, every initiative I build, and every student I mentor. When I think about why I do this work, why I push to create new programs, new frameworks, and new possibilities for students who have been told there is no place for them, I think of her. She is the reason I believe so deeply that every person deserves to be seen, supported, and given the chance to thrive. Her legacy is not just personal. It lives in every life this work touches.

The most transformative advice I ever received was deceptively simple, yet it has proven to be the most enduring truth I carry: believe in yourself. Not blindly, not arrogantly, but deeply and consistently, even when the evidence around you seems to suggest otherwise. In a world that too often asks women, and particularly women of color, to shrink, to qualify their brilliance, and to second-guess what they know to be true about themselves, that advice is nothing short of revolutionary.

I have learned over the course of my career that self-belief is not a destination you arrive at once and then possess forever. It is a practice. Some days it comes easily, carried forward by momentum and affirmation. Other days it requires a conscious, deliberate choice to stand in your own truth when the noise of doubt, from within or from without, grows loud. What has helped me most in those moments is returning to two anchors that have never failed me: integrity and gratitude.

Integrity, for me, means doing the work honestly, speaking the truth even when it is uncomfortable, and refusing to compromise my values for the sake of convenience or approval. It means that when I look back at the choices I have made, I can stand behind them. And gratitude, genuine and constant gratitude, is what keeps my feet on the ground when success could otherwise lift me away from what matters. Being thankful for where I came from, for the people who believed in me before I fully believed in myself, and for the opportunity to do work that matters keeps me connected to my purpose.

Together, these values, self-belief, integrity, and gratitude, form a compass. When the path forward feels uncertain or overwhelming, I return to them. And every time, they point me in the right direction.

Here is an expanded version in her own voice:

First and foremost, I want every young woman entering this industry to hear this clearly: believe in your own vision. Not a version of it that has been edited down to make others comfortable, not a cautious, hedged approximation of what you truly see, but the full, bold, unapologetic vision that lives inside you. The world will offer you many opportunities to shrink it. Do not take them. Your vision is not a liability. It is your greatest asset.

Beyond that, I urge you to cultivate a spirit of gratitude as a daily practice, not as a performance of humility, but as a genuine acknowledgment of the people, the moments, and the struggles that have shaped you and continue to carry you forward. Gratitude has a way of keeping you honest. It reminds you that you did not get here alone, and that the success you build is most meaningful when it creates pathways for others to follow.

I also want to speak directly about the people you choose to surround yourself with, because this may be one of the most important decisions you ever make. Seek out people of positive energy and high integrity. Not people who simply agree with you or celebrate everything you do, but people who challenge you with love, who hold you accountable with kindness, and who show up for you with consistency. Guard that circle carefully, because the energy of the people closest to you will shape your thinking, your confidence, and your sense of what is possible in ways you may not even notice until you look back years later.

And please, do not underestimate the power of genuine human connection. Networking is a word that has been drained of its meaning in many professional circles, reduced to the exchange of business cards and LinkedIn requests. But what I am talking about goes so much deeper than that. I am talking about building real relationships, relationships grounded in mutual respect, shared purpose, and authentic care for one another's growth and wellbeing. These are the relationships that sustain you when a project fails, that celebrate you when you succeed, and that remind you of your worth on the days when you have forgotten it. In my experience, it is not the credentials on your resume or the accolades on your wall that carry you through the hardest seasons of a career. It is the people who know your name, believe in your work, and refuse to let you give up. Invest in those people. Be that person for others. That is the most enduring currency any of us will ever have.

We are standing at a critical crossroads, and I do not use that phrase lightly. The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence is not simply a technological shift. It is a civilizational one, and it is happening faster than our institutions, our ethics, and frankly our imaginations have been able to keep pace with. The opportunities for innovation are genuinely vast and, in many ways, thrilling. AI has the potential to democratize access to knowledge, to personalize learning in ways we have only dreamed of, and to help us solve problems that have resisted solution for generations. I am not someone who turns away from that potential. I lean into it, study it, and work to shape it.

But I also hold a profound concern that I believe we must name clearly and honestly: as we lean more heavily on technology to mediate our lives, our work, and our relationships, we are at risk of losing something irreplaceable. We are moving, sometimes without even noticing, away from authentic, human-to-human connection. The kind of connection that cannot be optimized, automated, or replicated by even the most sophisticated algorithm. The kind that happens when someone truly sees you, listens to you, and chooses to show up for you not because a system prompted them to, but because they genuinely care.

This tension is at the heart of my work in the College of Creative Studies and beyond. I study empathy not as a soft skill but as a fundamental human capacity that is being quietly eroded in a landscape that rewards efficiency over intimacy and speed over depth. My research on how empathy, engagement, and self-efficacy shape learning is, at its core, a argument for the enduring importance of the human element in education and in life. Technology should serve our humanity, not substitute for it.

The most important work we can do right now, as educators, as researchers, as leaders, and as human beings, is to ask ourselves with real seriousness: what do we refuse to outsource? What parts of connection, of care, of meaning-making, are so essentially human that we must protect them even as everything else transforms around us? I believe that how we answer those questions in this moment will define not just the future of education or technology, but the future of who we are to one another. And that is a question I intend to keep asking, loudly and for as long as I am able.

Here is an expanded version in her own voice:

If I am being truly honest about what anchors everything I do, it begins and ends with gratitude. Not gratitude as a social nicety or a passing acknowledgment, but gratitude as a lived philosophy, a daily orientation toward the world that shapes how I receive people, how I approach my work, and how I move through both the triumphs and the trials that inevitably come with a life fully lived.

Gratitude is not something I practice when things go well. It is what I return to precisely when they do not, because it is in the difficult moments that thankfulness becomes most powerful and most necessary.

Alongside gratitude, I hold ethics at the very center of how I operate. I believe deeply that how we do our work matters just as much as what we accomplish. The shortcuts we refuse to take, the credit we give generously, the honesty we maintain even when it costs us something, these are not small things. They are the substance of a life and a career that you can look back on with genuine pride. I have always sought to collaborate with people who share this commitment, people who bring not just talent and intelligence to the table, but a positive morality, a genuine desire to do right by others and to leave the spaces they inhabit better than they found them. Those are the partnerships that sustain meaningful work over the long term, and those are the people I choose to build with.

But I also want to say something that I think gets lost in conversations about professional success and achievement, because our culture has a way of reducing a life's worth to its outputs, its publications, its awards, its titles. Life is so much more than what you accomplish. It is about the people you love and who love you back. It is about the student who comes to your office hours struggling and leaves feeling seen. It is about the colleague who takes a chance on a collaboration that changes both of your trajectories. It is about the unexpected moments of beauty and connection that no resume will ever capture but that you carry with you always.

Being deeply appreciative of the people in your life, and of the unique experiences that shape your journey, is not a passive state. It is an active choice, made again and again, to recognize that you are surrounded by gifts, even when they arrive disguised as challenges. Graciousness, in both the rewarding seasons and the hard ones, is what keeps you human, keeps you humble, and keeps you connected to what truly matters. That is the value I most want to model, and most want to pass on.