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Advocate Online
Thriving in Academe
Tales from Real Life
My Mentor, Myself
When, as a graduate student, I answered an ad for a babysitter posted at NYU by Dr. Arlene Heyman, little did I know that my future job of caring for her sons would change my life, primarily because long after she was my employer she would remain my mentor and friend. An M.D. with a Masters in English Literature, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and published writer, Arlene's accomplishments were legion. But it was her manner that impressed me most. Arlene was, and is, an incredibly warm human being. She is also cultured, stylish, and self-correcting. Proud of her strengths, she accepts her weaknesses and never pretends to be perfect. All these things made me want to be like her, so much so that, even now, I find myself imitating her inflection, the thoughtful way she speaks that conveys how much she cares.
Perhaps her greatest gift was that she recognized my abilities at a time when I could not yet see them myself. This is precisely what her mentor, writer Bernard Malamud, had given her: "when someone thinks you're valuable, you become more valuable in your own eyes." Now she tells me I'm good at giving back—a sign of just how much she has taught me by example. Arlene fills me with a sense of possibility by letting me see the successful woman I might become.
—Melinda Barlow
University of Colorado at Boulder
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