Dr. Nicole Bing, an associate professor and speech-language pathologist at Governor State University, is featured on a special Black History Project episode. She shares her journey, highlighting the impact of mentors like Dr. Noma Anderson and Dr. Yvette Hyter. Bing's story underscores the importance of mentorship in the academic and professional lives of Black leaders, leading to her success in teaching, research, and international service learning.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Black History Project, amplify black voices, intellectual ancestors, speech language pathology, Howard University, Dr Noma Anderson, Dr Yvette Hyter, academic mentorship, publishing support, Governor State University, international service learning, community-based clinic, research articles, black female professor, teaching and leading

SPEAKERS

Joi Patterson, Amy Vujaklija, Nicole Bing

Amy, there are all these people who are leaders in such like beautiful, quiet, strong ways and don't often get recognized.

Thank you for joining, teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi. This episode is part of a special Black History Project.

This project is designed to amplify black voices and provide crucial perspectives on the experiences of black people which are often overlooked and misrepresented by offering authentic experience reflections and successes. This project promotes an accurate portrayal of history and society.

Dr Nicole Bing, you are an associate professor and researcher in the Department of Communication Disorders at Governor State University. You are also a certified and licensed speech language pathologist and a member of the Illinois and the American Speech Language Hearing associations with over 20 years of clinical experience in pediatric communication disorders in 2017 you became a faculty leader with Governor state's study abroad program. Since that time, you have served as a faculty leader on international service learning experiences to Nicaragua, Panama and Ghana. You have worked with undergraduate and graduate students from across the university to serve in public health brigades through the Global Brigades program on these brigades, students and faculty help construct hygiene units and potable water systems in rural communities to improve health outcomes for community members. Nicole you are known as the professor who absolutely loves teaching at gov state, and guess what? Gov state loves you back. Absolutely

we love you. Dr Nicole Bing and Nicole, we are honored to include you in this inaugural Governor State University Black History calendar for 2025 Can you please share with our listeners? Is there a specific black leader who inspires you? What do you most admire about this individual?

Well, so I'm so humbled like I was trying to, like, blink back tears. So you say, My students love me and I love teaching at gov state, you know they all know that I will cry at a heartbeat. I just had the pleasure of being at a conference, and we, in a session, talked about our intellectual ancestors. And so when the question, you know, is being posed about who is a black leader, who inspires me, I kind of would turn towards all of the people who helped me to believe it was possible to do this work that I I am doing and so, so I think I'm going to answer your question from that particular perspective, because there's just not one, right? There are all these people who are leaders in such, like, beautiful, quiet, strong ways, and don't often get recognized. So I'm going to talk to you about a couple people who made a big, huge difference for me. One of them is the person who first introduced me to the field of speech language pathology. So she is my like direct you know, she's at the root of this tree of who I've become as an academic. And her name is Dr Noma Anderson, at the time, I was a student at Howard University, and didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life, and had looked at my transcripts to see like, what classes I'd done well in, and then I knew I wanted to do something in the health professions, so I went around and I interviewed all these professors Who classes I'd earned an A in and then every chair of every department in an allied health profession, and I went, and I walked into Dr Noma Anderson's office, and she absolutely blew me away. She's this elegant, beautiful, black woman. She just sat down and explained to me what a speech language pathologist did. I don't even really think I was listening, because I was mesmerized by her intelligence and her like her passion, her joy in the work that could be accomplished. And I walked out of her office thinking I've still am not really sure what a speech language pathologist. Does, but whatever it is she is, that's what I that's who I want to be. She was absolutely a leader, you know, in in my life, and there were so many other people along my journey to becoming an academic who saw promise in me, saw potential in me and, and I had an opportunity recently to thank one of them, and, and it's a person who helped it be possible for me to actually end up at Governor State. So I'm going to say her name to you, and her name is Dr Yvette Hyter, and she is a retired professor now from Western Michigan University. And I remember meeting her when I was a doc student, and was she was in child language, just like I was working on child language and literacy in African American children. And I had a poster session just trying to get my little work out there. And she came and engaged with me and talked with me, and when I finished my dissertation and had my first academic post, she found me and said, you know that research you did as a doc student was really interesting, and I'm editing a special edition. Will you write in? Will you write your piece up for for the special edition? And I was brand new. Never had published anything, you know, I'd done presentations, but never published a piece and by myself. So I was terrified. And Dr Hyter found a writing mentor for me. Found a writing mentor for me. She worked with me and helped me to publish, you know, my first research article off of my dissertation. And I saw her at a conference recently and told her that when I first my first academic post was a really tough post. It was not a really friendly environment. I was a black female professor at a university that had probably eight black professors on the whole campus, and it led me to decide to find a new position. And the position at Governor state came open, and I told Dr Hyter, I think I don't I don't know that I would have had the confidence, the strength to step out of what people told me I couldn't step out of like you needed to stay where you were and kind of be hazed and abused. But I was just like, No, no, no. I'm published. I am published, and I am a researcher, and I am a versioning, you know, baby academic here, I can do this thing, and I ended up right here at Governor state. So for me, those are the kinds of leaders and who helped open doors for me and helped me get into a space where I have been able to do all of those, like, really cool things that this space of Governor state has allowed me to do, from the teaching that I do in my department to the community based clinic I run with my colleagues to the international service learning work that I've done in Central America and now West Africa. It is because of those people, those beautiful black women who stepped into my life and made it possible for me to see that I could do I could do all of this informed.

Thank you, Dr Nicole Bing, for sharing your story with us and highlighting these beautiful women for us today for this black history calendar, thank you.

We love you. Dr Nicole bean,

thank you. It's mutual. It's mutual. Thank you so much. Thank

you for listening to teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi. Visit our website at G, O, v, s, t.edu/teaching, and leading podcast to see the show notes from this episode,

we appreciate Governor State University's work behind the scenes to make publishing possible. Stay tuned for more episodes with Dr Amy and Dr Joi you.