Care Is Currency: Bhopla Gives Back Through Service
A sensitivity for humanity and a spirit of service was instilled in Rhony Bhopla MFA ’22 from a young age.
“My mom always told me, ʻRhony, always be nice,’” she said. “If I ever strayed from that, it was mom reminding me that it’s always a good idea to be nice to people. Helping others is also something I learned from my mom. She was a lifetime volunteer.”
So it is no surprise that when Bhopla enrolled in the Pacific University Master of Fine Arts in Writing program, she carried that sensitivity for humanity and spirit of service into her studies and beyond. She mentors. She teaches. She leads.
Bhopla’s service to the university, the MFA program and her community is being recognized with the Pacific University Alumni Association’s Emerging Leader Award. Presented for outstanding leadership in their vocation, community and service to the university, alumni are eligible to be nominated for the award through their 10-year reunion.
The award will be presented during the Alumni Association Awards Ceremony & Donor Celebration on Thursday, Oct. 10, held in conjunction with the university’s Homecoming & Family Weekend.
Bhopla is philosophical when she considers the impact of the award, presented by a Pacific community that she considers family.
“When I think about this award, I think about not just my actual ancestors, but all of the ancestors that have influenced me in a positive manner,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for me to have a platform, but also to provide a platform for those who have influenced my thinking in a positive manner and for those who have made a positive difference in the world.”
Bhopla passes that influence on to everyone she encounters. In nominating Bhopla for the award, Michele Knapp MFA ’23 credits Bhopla’s friendship and mentorship for not only getting her through the program but in finding purpose in her writing.
“Rhony is a lifelong learner,” Knapp said in the nomination. “She is always teaching, even in small ways. During my time as an MFA student, Rhony taught me to stand up for myself, to demand to be heard while respecting the voices and perspectives of others.”
Bhopla’s service to her fellow students extends far beyond friendship and mentorship. A recipient of the MFA’s Kwame Dawes Mapmakers Scholarship, Bhopla was a teaching assistant with MFA director Scott Korb during her time as a student and continues to contribute to the program’s in-person residencies. In September 2023, Bhopla became just the second MFA alum to join the Pacific University Alumni Association Board of Directors. She was named the board’s vice president in December 2023.
Service to the university is a way that Bhopla honors her MFA family and her Pacific family. Both not only helped her to grow as a writer but allowed her to use writing to come to grips with loss of both of her parents. Both her mother and father died while she was an MFA student. Pacific rallied around her.
“The people you spend time with, they become your family,” Bhopla said. “Sometimes our real families aren’t there with us, but when we meet people in our work environment and study environment, they become quite close because they can see inside your brain. They know what is going on. There’s a safe space where they just listen to you. I could rely on that.”
Like many who choose to enroll in the university’s low-residency MFA program, Bhopla arrived at Pacific with plenty of life experience under her belt. She has spent over 20 years working in varying roles in education, arts administration and volunteer organizations. She currently works as a science educator for Sierra Nevada Journeys, an outdoor science education non-profit.
Since January 2023, Bhopla has chaired the board of directors of Women’s Wisdom Art, a nonprofit in her hometown of Sacramento, California, dedicated to empowering women, furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion, and providing wellness activities through visual and written arts. She has led workshops for the organization since 2022.
Prior to Women’s Wisdom Art, Bhopla worked for the Crocker Art Museum as an art educator. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, she started her current volunteer role with the Sacramento Medical Reserve Corps.
With Women’s Wisdom Art, Bhopla believes in being hands-on in her leadership. “I like to say that I lead from behind, because I want to know what is going on,” she said. “I don’t want to make decisions about people and don’t know what they are going through on a day-to-day basis.”
Service in Bhopla’s eyes is simply a way to pay for everything that others have given to her and to care for those who have become her family. Her mom would want it that way.
“I wrote a poem about a sculpture as part of my thesis about a sculpture,” she recalled. “It was made of a slender piece of iron, Nigerian currency. The poem is very short, but it was my discovery in the process of writing that love is currency, care is currency, time is currency, and these exchanges are ongoing in multi-dimensions.
“You and I are exchanging a currency when we share time, we share space. When we volunteer, when we give of our time, there is value to that.”