Leadership & Community Engagement
Harvey honored by award wins, grateful for work with students
By Wyatt Crosher, Assistant Director of Communications for Student Affairs
This past spring, Mikala Harvey was checking her email as she would any other day as program director for Leadership & Community Engagement. In the same email, Harvey realized she had both been nominated, and won, a 2024 Staff Employee of the Year Award in the community and public service category.
Harvey did not know she was even being considered for the honor.
“I guess my team came together, pulled in some students to help write a nomination, which I had no idea about, and they turned it in,” Harvey said. “It was shocking.”
Harvey was one of five UNC Charlotte faculty and staff members to earn an employee of the year honor, and to earn it in a category devoted to public service made it especially significant.
“That the University even has an award in that category to me is just exciting in and of itself,” Harvey said. “A lot of gratitude, a lot of appreciation, very overwhelmed, but overall really humbled and just grateful for it.”
Five years prior to Harvey’s arrival at Charlotte, she was searching for a position after earning her master in student affairs administration from Appalachian State University. Harvey first found her passion for student affairs through pursuing her interests at school and seeing the work of university staff members first hand.
“I was your stereotypical case of being very involved on campus, but I saw how I changed and transitioned, and the impact that I was able to have on other people as a student leader,” Harvey said. “I just kind of fell in love with what higher education can be, and learning that student affairs was a career path, I realized I get to kind of continue this impact, but in a different way.”
Originally from Wichita, Kan., Harvey applied to other schools closer to home, both in the grad school process and for positions after graduation, but both times the North Carolina universities grabbed her attention.
When applying for her role at Charlotte, Harvey said she was impressed by the campus, how much the position matched her interests and the ability to grow within the University through her work.
“After I graduated, I was going to move back closer to Kansas, and then this job opened up and it was this perfect mix of leadership and service, which is what I've really always had a passion about,” Harvey said. “I feel like UNC Charlotte is this hidden gem that I hope is becoming less and less hidden. It's a beautiful campus, but I think the job position itself was obviously the biggest reason for me coming here. It had the opportunity to build things that weren’t there before, and that really excited me.”
Since arriving at Charlotte in July 2019, Harvey has lived up to that opportunity to build. She brought the Alternative Service Break back to the University as a way for students to directly engage in community service. Harvey also helped to create the Students Engaging in Rewarding Volunteer Experiences (SERVE) team for more opportunities within the Charlotte community.
These efforts, and many others, were reasons for Harvey’s employee of the year award honor, but that was not the only award she won in the spring: Harvey also earned the Rising Star Award at the Student Affairs end-of-year celebration.
The nomination for Harvey’s Rising Star honor highlights her collective work within Leadership & Community Engagement, and how she’s left an impact on both the students and staff she has worked with since coming to the University.
“Mikala has transformed our work with community engagement. She has developed and grown a team of students who lead other students to join the greater Charlotte community in making it a better place to live defined by the people who live here,” the nomination stated. “She engages with directors of community organizations, faculty and staff across the institution, students, and community members with grace and ease, showing how much she cares about community and learning.”
This award, along with the University employee of the year honor, has been a whirlwind for Harvey, but she has been grateful to earn recognition for her efforts.
“It's been overwhelming honestly, I feel just an immense amount of gratitude that there are people who would think that highly of me. I get to do what I love and I believe I do it well, I try to do it as best as I can,” Harvey said. “I'm never going to do it completely right, but to have that level of an honor and appreciation, and that my colleagues see the work I do is valuable, it's definitely a motivating factor.”
Harvey went from an involved student as an undergrad, then chose a graduate program focused on student affairs. Within five years of her first post-grad job, she earned multiple awards for her efforts to the division.
But for Harvey, the awards come behind her favorite thing about the line of work she has chosen.
“I love seeing the light bulb go off for students, seeing them come in, not have a lot of confidence in what they're able to do. They have all these hopes and dreams, but they're like, ‘surely not me,’” Harvey said. “But then, you are able to be a part of giving them an opportunity to practice it, try something new or, possibly fail and then ultimately see them come out successful, proud of themselves, more confident and more passionate about all kinds of things. That's my favorite part.