Meet Moet and Coach Henderson, her student success coach

Coaching helps a student lead with purpose and embrace imperfection

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With one bachelor’s degree already in hand, Moet Evans-Holloway decided to enroll at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) to pursue a second degree and experience life at an HBCU. As Moet explained, “It feels good being around students that look like yourself. It feels good having professors that look like you.” 

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One of those professors, ShaDerrickah Henderson, taught Moet’s freshman seminar class. That was just the beginning of what would become a close and meaningful relationship for both of them. “Moet was one of my thriving students. She was not afraid to call me out whenever something didn't make sense or if she had any questions about an assignment,” Coach Henderson recalled. “Since that was my first year teaching a college course, I really valued her feedback as a student. She always had some useful advice and tips for me. Once we found out that I was her success coach, the relationship just grew from there.” 

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Leading with care and compassion

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Moet wasted no time getting involved at her new school. She is the vice president of Self-Pride, an organization for the LGBTQ+ community representing self-love and self-care. She also recently founded her own organization called Strictly For The Girls, a female-centered organization “where female students can come and share what's going on in their life,” Moet explained. “It's a safe space for sisterhood, self-empowerment, women empowerment, and pretty much all the stuff I love.” This JCSU student leader also works as a crisis counselor for at-risk teens who may be struggling with life in foster care or their own homes. “They can come stay at our facility, find love, food, shelter if they need it, and we talk to them, see what's going on and try to connect with them.”

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Moet’s leadership qualities were immediately evident to Coach Henderson. “I could see that Mo is a leader right off the bat. I realized that students really looked up to her as a big sister. I've even heard students refer to her as ‘auntie’ because of the way she carries herself and the pride that she takes in her work and the things she does around campus. How students responded to her showed me who she was from the very beginning.”

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Given her own busy schedule as a coach and professor, Coach Henderson was the perfect person to help Moet balance her jam-packed days. “Moet has a lot on her plate, so in our coaching sessions we really focus on prioritizing and doing it in a healthy way. I never want her to feel like any of the tasks she has set her mind on are impossible to accomplish. But we do have to come up with plans for how she will accomplish those tasks. So it’s about sitting down and having an open, honest heart-to-heart with her to develop a plan that is realistic for her — and making sure that she knows that I'm here to support her.”

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Moet is definitely aware that she has Coach Henderson’s unwavering support and that she’s always available to listen. Moet has drawn upon both, and it’s fostered a sense of connection so strong that the two women have come to feel like sisters. “I love being able to have somebody I can talk to or call on when everything gets rough. Even in the good times, just being able to share good news or run into her office, it feels great,” Moet shared. “I really do value and honor the fact that I have a big sister and a success coach.”

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“I want them to know that, as their success coach, I'm more than just a counselor or someone to help them come up with a success plan to graduate. I want them to see me as someone who is a safe space. Someone that they can come to when they really have challenges and barriers that they may not know how to navigate. And the only way that I know how to do that personally is just to be vulnerable and open with them, especially if I expect them to do the same with me.”
— ShaDerrickah Henderson, JCSU Student Success Coach 

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Trained for success

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Though her personality certainly lends itself to teaching and coaching, Coach Henderson is quick to point to her InsideTrack training and development as the key to being such an effective coach for Moet and her other students. “I love to converse. I love to speak to my students. While it does take natural ability to want to connect, my InsideTrack certification and training showed me how to have meaningful, impactful conversations and really get to the point of the problem and the solution — or whatever it is that the student wants to discuss — in the time they have to meet with me.”

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For Coach Henderson and all the other InsideTrack-trained JCSU coaches, it’s not a matter of having all the answers — it’s about knowing what resources are available to their students and pointing them in the right direction. As Coach Henderson explained, “InsideTrack really gave me the tools and resources to learn how to navigate conversations with my students. There are a lot of times where I may not have any idea what things students may want to talk to me about, and I have to be prepared to give them the same resources to make sure that they get to a solution they feel comfortable with and is realistic for them. With InsideTrack training, I'm not caught off guard because they've given me what I need to give my students.”

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“One thing that I've come to realize about my students, it's already in them. They already have what it is that they need to be successful, but sometimes it just takes that extra support, that extra oomph to pull it out of them. So one thing that I love about InsideTrack, we do not hand our students the knowledge and the wisdom that they already have within themselves. Instead, we coach them for them to realize it so that they can have those aha moments.”
— ShaDerrickah Henderson, JCSU Student Success Coach

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Mutual respect, mutual admiration

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Through the course of their relationship — and through the important work they’ve done together over many coaching sessions — Coach Henderson watched Moet’s growth and development. “I'm most proud of her maturation, not just being a student, but being more than a student here on campus and outside of campus. It warms my heart to see all of the work that she's putting in, especially with her new project coming up, and just being a pillar for other young ladies that are coming behind her. To know that she's the one behind this project, the one who's really carrying the torch for other young Black girls, that just makes my heart happy.”

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Coach Henderson has helped Moet move confidently in the direction of her career goals. Majoring in psychology with a minor in communications, Moet’s coach-supported start at JCSU has helped set her up for a future where she can continue to have an impact. “Within the next three to five years, I hope to be Dr. Mo, or at least working on my PhD to become an adolescent psychologist. My organization here will hopefully be off the ground and running. I will keep stepping into womanhood and stepping into all that God has for me — being a psychologist, being an entrepreneur, being a female empowerment speaker. If God does his great work and everything works in my favor, that's where I see myself.” 

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“My coach has helped me to be more vulnerable, to be more trusting and helped me believe in myself and not be so hard on myself. I feel like when you're in college, you're a student and you’re working full-time and you have other stuff going on, you're really hard on yourself, especially when you want to reach certain goals.” 
— Moet Evans-Holloway, JCSU student