Hood shared her focus during a recent lecture as part of the My Life, My Scholarship<\/a> Symposium Series. The monthly series features scholars from iCubed and the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship program examining how their lived experiences have impacted their research and scholarly interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story she shared included two distinct parts. The first was what she learned about herself and her potential while growing up as the third of four girls in a loving family. The second was how the people she met along her academic journey helped her understand who she could help as a community-focused social psychology researcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up in a bubble<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hood grew up in what she calls \u201ca bubble\u201d \u2013 a planned community in Columbia, Maryland, where everything she and her family needed was nearby her home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGrowing up, I didn’t really understand the \u2018isms’ that I study today \u2013 racism and sexism \u2013 that are out there. I didn’t really feel those growing up in the first couple of years of my life,\u201d Hood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She says that while growing up, her mom taught her to never let someone else\u2019s opinion determine what you can achieve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s easy to get caught up in what everybody else thinks about you. It’s not what they believe about my ability. It’s what I believe about my ability and to really focus on that in order to achieve my goals,\u201d Hood says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hood\u2019s father was an instructor, often teaching community college and university courses in the evening in addition to working a fulltime day job. Hood sometimes spent his class sessions sitting in the back of the room, grading papers for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy dad also was one of the most fearless people I have ever met. He always went by the belief that if you feel that what you’re doing is right, then that is what you need to go forward,\u201d Hood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hood\u2019s father also taught her how to cook. From the tender age of three, she would balance on a step stool, working the stovetop under his careful supervision. She says the kitchen remains her sanctuary to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFood isn’t just nurturing the body for me, it is the way that I express myself. So when I’m mad, I cook. When I’m frustrated, I cook. Throughout graduate school, I cooked every day. My cohort would know that I had a bad day because I told them to come over and there would be a five course meal spread out,\u201d Hood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hood discussed her three sisters, each with distinctive personalities and offering unique influences on her life. She said those differences in many ways inspire her research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTheir experiences are different even as we’re in the same house. And that we can share commonalities but still experience something differently. That has been so important to me and taking that into research knowing that the way that I grew up and the way that I view things are not going to be the same as everybody else in the room,\u201d Hood says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA whole other perspective\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After completing her bachelor degree program, Hood\u2019s graduate school experience took a circuitous route, resulting in her earning three masters degrees. Hood said her lack of research experience left her searching for a focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An interest in criminal science inspired her to pursue that direction. But a lightbulb went off for her when she participated in a sociology project in rural southern Virginia to help communities create youth programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt that point, I didn’t realize how research and community work could blend together. I really thought that I could do only one or the other. So, my service interests were very different from my research interests because I didn’t know you could combine them. I didn’t know that you could do more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon after, she met VCU psychologist Faye Belgrave<\/a> and worked with her on an internship in Kenya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI went to Kenya thinking I was going to do research on ethnic identity and the intersection with the criminal justice system. I came back as an HIV researcher,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Be willing to serve the community<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I vowed…that rural health equity will always be a part of what I do<\/p>Kristina Hood<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n A relocation to Starkville, Mississippi transformed her into a community health researcher. Living in a segregated town, where residents lacked transportation options, did not trust the local emergency room and had little access to medical specialists sharply contrasted with that \u201cbubble\u201d she grew up in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy passion for rural health came from there. Living it gave me a whole other perspective that I never learned in the textbooks. It changes your perspective on what it’s like to be here in the U.S. and to be privileged in the U.S.,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One lady Hood had befriended died from an infection after contracting cancer but lacked the medical insurance needed to continue treatments for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI vowed to her that rural health equity will always be a part of what I do,\u201d Hood said. \u201cShe should still be here with her grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese humans are my everything.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hood has been thinking a great deal lately about being with children, and not just because she and her husband now have two of their own, ages three and one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese humans are my everything,\u201d she said, beaming over the images of young, smiling faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hood\u2019s journey to motherhood was arduous. She faced loss along the way. And the lack of resources and support she experienced in those dark moments inspired her to do something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hood wants to work to end the stigma around fertility challenges and the experience of losing a pregnancy. She pursues that work knowing that it will be hard, but she feels compelled to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs a member of that community, I would never want to take advantage of those who sit in that space with me. But I also don’t want to assume because I am a member of that community that I know what their experience has been. Part of this new phase right now is understanding learning and doing a bit more to really be sure that I can do it ethically, morally, and that it feels good to both me and the community that I hope to serve,\u201d Hood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That represents a shift from the HIV prevention work that has been the focus of much of Hood\u2019s current research. She said she\u2019s counseling herself through such a transition the same way she would advise her students, leaning on the lessons her parents taught her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWalk your purpose. Know what you want and keep moving towards it. It is a long road,\u201d Hood said. \u201cThere’s a lot of setbacks. We put so much pressure and expectation on ourselves. Honor the time. Honor the journey. Honor the experience because everything I did, I learned something from it and it might not have been easy but I wouldn’t take it back. You’ll get there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" iCubed scholar Kristina Hood wants to help those who endure fertility challenges and pregnancy loss She grew up in a tight-knit family. Now, VCU researcher Kristina Hood is turning her attention to helping women facing challenges in expanding their own families. \u201cI met many, many women who’ve experienced difficulty having kids as well as loss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1628,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,183],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icubed","category-my-life-my-scholarship","tag-dei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1628"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":771,"date":"2023-02-13T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/?p=771"},"modified":"2023-02-13T12:07:44","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T17:07:44","slug":"ivy-bell-connects-east-end-residents-to-the-very-resources-she-benefited-from-over-a-decade-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/2023\/02\/13\/ivy-bell-connects-east-end-residents-to-the-very-resources-she-benefited-from-over-a-decade-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivy Bell connects East End residents to the very resources she benefited from over a decade ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n Empathy and kindness guide the community health worker\u2019s approach to work and life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you walk through the front doors of the VCU Health Hub<\/a>, you\u2019ll probably be greeted by Ivy Bell\u2019s smiling face at the front desk. Bell is the hub\u2019s in-house certified community health worker and resource specialist, which means that she connects people in the East End to important housing, food, employment and health resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her job isn\u2019t as simple as connecting residents to a singular resource, however. Oftentimes, people aren\u2019t aware of the resources that are available to them, or they come in for one issue to later find that they would benefit from many of the available resources. Thus, much of Bell\u2019s job involves listening closely to clients\u2019 stories, reading between lines of what they tell her and following up with them regularly to help them achieve their goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her advice to those who may be reluctant to reach out for help: \u201cI always say, you never know if you don\u2019t try. If you don\u2019t try, then how do you know if you\u2019re gonna get the resource? Or how are you going to find the house, or get the food, or get the help that you need if you don\u2019t try or if you don\u2019t ask?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A culture of gratitude<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beside her workstation is a wall covered with cards and notes of gratitude from people she\u2019s worked with. In the midst of those papers, a $20 bill is pinned up. Bell shares that the bill came from a resident who was struggling with drug addiction and wanted to get clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe last time he came in [to the VCU Health Hub] before he got clean, he was on the verge of overdosing,\u201d Bell confided. \u201cI had to convince him as he dozed in and out that he should go to the ER. Once he trusted that what I said was okay, he agreed to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBefore he went out to get in the ambulance, he was scared to take the $20 bill he had with him. He was like, \u2018Here, this is for you, take it.\u2019 And I just kept it. He was scared to get in the ambulance, so I walked beside him over there. I talked him through it\u2026The next time I saw him, he was doing good, and he\u2019s been clean since then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bell understands the needs of East End residents more than most, because she\u2019s been in their shoes before. \u201cI\u2019ve been the person in the community that needed help,\u201d she shares. Bell first reached out for assistance nearly 15 years ago. The resources she received\u2013from VCU Counseling Services<\/a> to Peter Paul<\/a> community programming\u2013helped her to take care of and believe in herself again. \u201cOther people saw something in me that I didn\u2019t see in myself at the time,\u201d she said. \u201cI always want to give back what I was given.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early in her career, Bell suffered from imposter syndrome. \u201cI used to be scared,\u201d she said, despite being qualified for her position and highly recommended by her colleagues. That self-doubt stopped her from striving for various career advancement opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen I had a turn for the worst in my life, and then I woke up and decided, I\u2019m gonna do [community health work], because I love giving back to the community,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI love being helpful. And it always took someone else to be like, \u2018You\u2019re gonna be great. Do what you love to do.\u2019 And that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of all I want the East End\/Church Hill residents to know that I believe in them and want to see them doing great things here as well.<\/p>Ivy Bell<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Community impact<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bell\u2019s accolades are many. She is a certified community health worker<\/a>, a member of the Sigma Beta Xi sorority and a board member for Circles RVA<\/a>, an organization committed to ending poverty. In just the past year, she\u2019s also graduated from the VCU Grace E. Harris Leadership Program<\/a>, a 10-month program for current and emerging leaders at VCU, and became co-chair of the Greater Richmond Continuum of Care governance committee<\/a> to end homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite her busy schedule, she gives everyone the personalized time and attention that they need. It\u2019s clear that her presence transforms the workplace for everyone who interacts with her. \u201cIvy is the best,\u201d attested Kristoffer Ricasata, operations coordinator for the VCU Health Hub. “Time and time again, Ivy exercises a level of commitment and care for our community, whether through her role at the hub or through her advocacy outside our walls. It is her compassion and her deep sense of humanity that elevates her work far beyond what my words can capture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIvy is an amazing community health worker who consistently works hard and is extremely dedicated to her clients,\u201d shared Shannon Johnson, administrative coordinator for the VCU Health Hub. \u201cI have witnessed Ivy go above and beyond for each community member she helps at the VCU Health Hub. Community members will frequently stop past the hub to update her on their progress towards employment, securing housing, and their overall health and wellness goals. As a new grandmother, her maternal love and dedication to serve others does not go unnoticed. We’re really fortunate to have her on our team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Bell, those moments when people stop by with positive life updates are what makes her job so worthwhile. \u201cWhen people come back and tell me how they\u2019re doing and they look good and they\u2019re feeling great, and they come up and they say thank you, that\u2019s when I know I\u2019ve really made an impact on someone\u2019s life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through her years of serving the community, if there\u2019s one thing she\u2019s learned, it\u2019s that \u201cEverybody\u2019s not the same. [I\u2019ve learned to] just be open-minded and understanding. You never know, you can make someone\u2019s day with just a, \u2018Hey, how are you doing? How are you feeling?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want to show others in the community that you can do anything you put your mind to. And to trust the resources that you have in the community. And most of all I want the East End\/Church Hill residents to know that I believe in them and want to see them doing great things here as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Editor\u2019s Note: <\/strong>Diversity Drives Excellence Profiles introduce you to some of the diverse faculty and staff members whose work makes VCU such an uncommon and amazing university. The Office of Institutional Equity, Effectiveness and Success (IES<\/a>) publishes the profiles on its blog<\/a> and promotes them across its social media channels. Please send questions or comments about this series to ies@vcu.edu<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Empathy and kindness guide the community health worker\u2019s approach to work and life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1245,"featured_media":775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-engagement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":756,"date":"2023-02-05T23:22:24","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T04:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/?p=756"},"modified":"2023-02-05T23:26:22","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T04:26:22","slug":"mk-abadoo-building-community-through-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/2023\/02\/05\/mk-abadoo-building-community-through-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity Drives Excellence: Building community through dance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n With their \u201cHoptown\u201d immersive performance, iCubed professor MK Abadoo uses sistering circles to create intergenerational connections<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beautiful art sometimes originates in dark places. For MK Abadoo, VCU dance professor and iCubed scholar in the Racial Equity, Arts and Culture<\/a> core, the passion project that has consumed much of their time and energy over the past several years was started during a rough time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe seed was planted around 2017 into 2018,\u201d Abadoo explains. \u201cIt was a major transition in my life and my mother was visiting me quite often. We would sit together after my daughter would go to sleep and, inevitably, it would lead to her telling me stories about her life, stories I had never heard before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n These stories prompted Abadoo to look more closely into a town important to her growing up, Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the site of many family reunions and where her grandmother lived. In a fortuitous coincidence, she discovered that the author bell hooks, whose work they were rediscovering, grew up in Hopkinsville. \u201cIn her writing, she talks about growing up in Kentucky and developing a deep love of the land, of Appalachia, but she didn\u2019t talk about Hopkinsville specifically,\u201d Abadoo says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The convergence of these factors inspired Abadoo to create \u201cHoptown,\u201d an immersive, evening-long work that enlists audience members as \u201cwitnesses\u201d to the experience as the action of the dance happens around and in-between them. They are developing the work through rehearsals in Richmond, three residencies in Hopkinsville and one just completed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; she hopes to bring the work to VCU later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even as Abadoo continues to develop the work along with a company of core performers, the groundbreaking project has already been honored and awarded, starting with a National Performance Network Creation Fund<\/a> award in 2021, receiving a National Dance Project Production Grant<\/a> last October and most recently garnering support from the Kennedy Center through its Office Hours residency program<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Written in the stars<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Abadoo should be used to receiving honors at this point: among other awards, they were listed by Dance Magazine<\/a> as one of \u201c25 to Watch\u201d in 2018 and received a 2016 Fulbright Fellowship that supported a project with the National Dance Company of Ghana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They say landing their job at VCU involved a circuitous series of connections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/724\/2023\/02\/HoodKristina.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Kristina](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/724\/2023\/02\/hood3.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Green](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/724\/2023\/02\/Copy-of-ies_profiles_at_a_glance_230201.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Ivy](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/724\/2023\/02\/ivy1_small.png\")
![\"Ivy](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/724\/2023\/02\/ivy2_small.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/ies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/724\/2023\/02\/ies_profiles_at_a_glance_230201.png\")
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