Joelle Hannam wins Obama-Chesky Scholarship, switches from architecture to sociology & psychology at NDSU. ~ BirdNote hosts Zoom fundraiser.
Joelle Hannam Transcript
Main Street
Welcome to Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Craig Blumenshine. As the number of college students wanting to pursue a career in public service is declining over the country, Joelle Hannam, a junior at North Dakota State University, is bucking the trend.
She's received the prestigious Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship for Public Service, which is awarded to only 100 rising college juniors across the country who plan to pursue a career in public service. Joelle, welcome to Main Street.
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Well, thank you for having me.
Main Street
Take me back to your high school time. You're not from North Dakota, you're from Alabama. That's correct.
Tell me about your high school days.
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yeah, so from elementary school, I planned on becoming an architect, so a lot of my decisions focused around that. So once I started high school, I was homeschooled, and so during the morning I did course subjects, and in the afternoon I was either taking drafting and design courses at the community college, or I had internships either with the City of Montgomery Planning Department or with House to House.
Main Street
So then it came a time for you to decide what you wanted to do after high school. What happened next?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yeah, so after working with House to House, I wanted to- And what is House to House? It is a non-profit focused on affordable housing and mentorship. So it works in some of the poorest communities in Montgomery, and really the idea behind it is salvaging properties that a lot of people say should be torn down, and the same way that all lives can be salvaged as well, so all life and property has value.
Main Street
Did you meet with community members to try to devise plans to save those properties and those folks?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
So I really did more work on site, so more construction work, and I was also in the office designing plans for the houses that were being renovated.
Main Street
So you were kind of working as an architect, a drafts-person, doing those things, which was still the time when that was your career plan?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yes, it was.
Main Street
Somehow, someway, you ended up in North Dakota from Alabama. What happened next?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I was looking for a bridge between high school and going into architecture, so I served with AmeriCorps through Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, and once I was finishing up, I started looking for a school that would fit architecture, and NDSU is a good fit for architecture because they have a five-year master's.
Main Street
Your time with Habitat for Humanity, what was that like compared to what you were doing in Alabama?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
In a sense, it was similar but also different because I was working on new construction, and in Alabama, it was old construction.
Main Street
How were you whetting your appetite for maybe a desire to change course later?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I was on site, so helping build the houses and leading volunteers because that's the labor part of Habitat. So I had a little interaction with the homeowners who would come later on, but a lot was just interacting with volunteers.
Main Street
Then you came to NDSU, still planning on a degree in architecture. Things have kind of went another course.
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yeah, so something I really enjoyed about architecture is it's multi, but it has many dimensions, and one of those is how individuals interact with their buildings and how it impacts their mental health. So I started becoming more interested in the mental health factor, along with being in this mental health crisis of not having enough providers and meeting providers who are more competent with dealing with a wider range of people from different cultures.
Main Street
So how has that changed, then, your coursework?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yeah, so I'm now studying psychology and sociology just because I have this increasing interest like within mental health, but also knowing that individuals are impacted by their surroundings, the social part of individuals.
Main Street
Let's talk about this scholarship that you've received. Only 100 up-and-coming juniors across the country have received the scholarship. First, how did you learn about the scholarship?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yeah, my dad came across it on Scholarship America, and he encouraged me to apply for it.
Main Street
This was a scholarship that went public service. Had you already started maybe thinking that this was the course that you were going to take?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yeah, so public service has always kind of been in my mindset because I think it's more of an attitude for life instead of necessarily a career. So even when I was looking at architecture, I still wanted to be involved in some form of service, so design buildings that would help people more. And so now it's still a very important piece of what I want to do is being able to serve individuals and the communities.
Main Street
So you have this wonderful scholarship that also has a $10,000 stipend to go on what's called a summer voyage. What is that?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
It's an opportunity to travel, to intern, basically do whatever I want to do. And I'm not quite sure what I want to do. Part of the programming that the Obama Foundation has, which is who is funding the scholarship, is developing what I want the summer voyage to be.
Main Street
Can it be anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
It can be anywhere in the world. As cool as I think it would be to go to, like, around the world in the next summer, I think I'll just visit a couple of communities and really connect with the community members there.
Main Street
Let me ask you this. You had a public service vision as part of this process. You said you plan to focus on the intersection of mental health, community wellness, and the built environment.
What are the challenges or issues that you see in the public service sector that you really want to attack?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
One thing that I'm passionate about is access to mental health services and health services. I think specifically within Black and Brown communities, there's a lot of stereotyping and stigmatizing around accessing care specifically for mental health. And I want individuals to know it's okay to seek care and it doesn't make them inherently broken.
In the same way we seek care for, like, a broken arm, we should seek care when we're not feeling okay in our minds as well. I'm also interested in how, like, sleep is impacting mental and physical health because they're related. And if sleep improves, then mental health and physical health both improve as well.
Main Street
One of the things I think that I've noticed in looking at this issue too over time is that rural areas have, it seems to be, little access to mental health. Have you come across that being out here in North Dakota versus, say, what's available to folks in urban areas?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yeah, so Fargo has a lot more providers than in the rest of North Dakota. I think one piece that's really changed is telehealth services, and that's increasing access to individuals being able to access at least mental health services. With mental health, a lot of it is just talking.
And if it's been slightly adjusted, then that can be done very well over telehealth. But if the doctor, like, needs to, like, feel your hands or whatever, that can't be done over, like, a video.
Main Street
You've talked about what a built community is. What is that? And you've talked about the mental health aspects of a positive, supported community. What else is involved in what's called a built community?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
So it's what we're modifying to fit our needs. So, like, the Earth is just, like, oceans, forests, mountains, but humans don't really interact with that. We interact in what we have as cities, which are massive design elements.
And that's, like, modification to fit our needs. So from buildings to streets to light poles, everything has been modified so that we can function better. And so I'm always interested in kind of, like, how that is impacting, like, our interactions as individuals, like, with other people and then with ourselves.
Main Street
So what pops into my mind, then, is what I've heard of as urban planners. Is that similar or is that more specialized?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
It's similar and it's also specialized within the sense of they're designing more cityscape versus, like, an individual building. So projecting how they want the city to grow or to be developed, which then impacts what buildings are built, how streets are designed.
Main Street
What would you like your peers to know about public service? At the top of the show, we talked about maybe fewer and fewer people, and especially fewer people your age, are looking at lives of public service. What would you tell your peers?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I don't think public service has to be this big career. Our, like, idea, like, your whole life has to focus on it. I think it's about finding what interests you because that is going to be what is sustainable.
So for me, like, part of that was building houses for a couple of years, but not everyone likes to do that, and therefore, I don't think they should be. But if they have something within their field, like financing, that they're really good at and love doing, then they can find somewhere else they can also pour into their community in that sense.
Main Street
I think that our nation is more divisive than it may have been years and years ago. Perhaps others have a different opinion about that. Does that concern you as you go forward as a young, soon-to-be graduate, wanting to have impact on communities?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I think it will always impact us because what's always above us within being divisive impacts the individual, but it also means as I'm interacting with individuals, I can help them thrive within whatever circumstances we are in. And so in a sense, that doesn't change if we're divisive or if we're thriving together. There will always be a part of interacting with individuals and helping them to do as well as they can.
Main Street
When you look out into the future, what are the challenges in your mind that are in front of you?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I think within the public service field, burnout is a really big problem because people go in with this idea that they have to be gung-ho, do it all the time, have this lifestyle of, oh, I have to be serving all the time, and then they fail to prioritize their own needs, their mental health, physical health, like their sleep, which impacts both of those. And I think part of what I'm interested in, sleep, can really help with that because it's teaching the community members, including public service members, that it's okay to prioritize yourself and to take the time that you need because you need to have a glass, as we often talk about, being able to pour out, but you need to have a glass. And if it's smashed, you can't pour out anything.
You have to completely focus on yourself. So if you want to continue to pour into other people, you first have to put yourself first.
Main Street
I think many people, at least it's been my observation, have different perceptions of what community engagement means and what it's all about. What does community engagement mean to you?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I think it's involvement and listening to the community. It's not coming into the community and telling them what they need because when individuals or organizations do that, it doesn't go well. The community doesn't feel heard.
But if individuals or organizations come into the community and they stake themselves out, they live in the community, they're engaged in it, they're making the active decisions and choices to interact with their neighbor, then they know what the community needs. And once the community says what they need, then that can start to be addressed. And it goes a lot farther than just telling people what they need.
So it's this active decision-making, active choices. It's not a passive thing that you do on their side.
Main Street
One thing I've just thought about, oftentimes I think many people would feel, okay, we've got a city council that we elect them to worry about that stuff. We don't need to be a participant because they'll take care of it. Is that the wrong way to think?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
In a sense, because you need different perspectives to create a community and to serve the public. So like city council only has so many people on it, but the community has huge amounts more of people and somehow that needs to be addressed and individuals, if they're just doing one or two things that can make someone's life easier or bring joy, then together as a whole, then we're helping our community thrive more.
Main Street
I was thinking before I came over, if you were in this role, say 40 years ago, your ability to communicate immediately with many would be very limited because of technology. Technology has changed so much. Is technology going to be an asset for you working forward or is it going to be another hurdle?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I think it's going to be an asset because it will allow dispersion of materials and interventions to go out a lot faster. Like we were talking about telehealth earlier, it's making access to care easier and eventually we'll have some form of ways that individuals can work through with different selves, like on self-guided modules to access care, which lessens the burden on providers as well and reduces cost of treatments.
Main Street
Do you have any mentors or heroes in the public service sector that you've thought about and maybe have learned from?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
Yeah, so I gained a lot of mentorship from Dr. Duggan O'Dell, who I work with in the lab. And I'm also connected to the Obama Foundation to a huge network of the alumni who've gone through there who are professionals in public service.
Main Street
Joelle, tell me the volunteer work that you're still doing today as a student.
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
So the lab that I'm working with does community outreach, which is part of the mission of NDSU being a land-grant university. It is increasing scientific knowledge. So the lab often goes to farmer's market and this summer we went to a block party in a rural community.
Main Street
Where did you go? What'd you learn?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
It was Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. In a sense, it's handing out materials and increasing the public knowledge on sleep and heart health and bite-sized pieces that individuals can take and implement in their own lives.
Main Street
Let me ask you this question. When you go home for a break or for summer, if you've had a chance to, what do you tell your parents about the fact that you've kind of shifted gears from being an architect to where you're going now?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
In a sense, they saw the shift. They saw as one of the reasons I shifted was I was struggling with my mental health more. And so they saw my interest in mental health increasing and my passion for increasing access to care and helping individuals have that.
And so when I started talking about switching to psychology and sociology, they kind of saw that as like, okay, that's a natural pathway. And one of my parents majored in sociology. So he was also excited that in a sense I was taking on like what he loved as well.
Main Street
We are enjoying our conversation with Joelle Hannum, a North Dakota State University junior who won the Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship, which is a collaboration between the Obama Foundation and Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky. The scholarship aims to support students pursuing a career in public service. Joelle, you recently had a chance to travel to Chicago to network with other winners.
What did you take away from that experience?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I took away the feeling of like not being alone within like the public service realm and wanting to go into it because it's becoming just less and less as we've discussed previously. Meeting other like young individuals who are just as passionate and specifically like within mental health is just really encouraging to see and it encourages me to continue to go into their field.
Main Street
You had a chance to hear probably several folks talk, including the former president, President Obama. What did he say?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
One thing that I took away that was most interesting to me is how he basically approached his presidency of trying to cross like polarization and the divide by just listening. So hearing what everyone has to say first and then saying what he has to say. So he was becoming like the biggest listener, but that provided him to have a very successful presidency in a sense and a very successful public service.
Main Street
Who else spoke that you got to listen to?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
One mental health professional spoke and I just found kind of her outlook to mental health interesting in the fact that she didn't look at it in like a negative fashion. She looked at it almost like in a humorous way of like anxiety being like a little sassy. And so it wasn't like the negative stereotypes that mental health can often get.
Main Street
What did you discover, Joelle, about yourself during that trip when you got to see so many other great students like yourself?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I was able in a sense to discover that I could be present in the way that I could be, but also like hold open hands, move slightly. Like they experienced Gua Sha with me instead of like trying to grab pieces at it, which is great because that allowed me to just be present more than other experiences that I've had where I am just trying to grab pieces and instead kind of miss the whole thing. But what I was able to grasp was so much better.
I also was able to really figure out that I do enjoy travel and exploring, but connecting with people is also really great.
Main Street
Has this changed at all the focus of your future studies or of your Voyager scholarship travel opportunities?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I think it more confirms that I wanted to look more into sleep and understand more like what good nights of sleep look like because there's so many individuals who struggle with sleep from like the young people in my cohort to those who they want to help. And so understanding sleep would really just be a great way to help others.
Main Street
Let me ask you one final question, Joelle. Are you more optimistic or less optimistic about your future having interacted now with these wonderful people?
Joelle Hannam, NDSU Obama-Chesky-Voyager Scholarship Winner
I'm more optimistic in the sense like I know it's going to be hard, but there's just like this great network of like young people within my cohort, but also within the Obama Foundation that are really rooting for me to really succeed and to be a public servant.
Main Street
We also would like to visit with some of Joelle's faculty who have been working with her, including Dr. Kat Duggan, who is an assistant professor and the director of the Personality and Trajectories to Health and Sleep Lab in the Department of Psychology at North Dakota State University, and Odalis García, a graduate student in psychology at North Dakota State University. Dr. Dugan, let me begin with you. How do you envision Joelle's skills that you've observed and her education that you're providing as contributing to the public good?
Katherine A. Duggan, PhD
I first met Joelle in class a little over a year ago. And at the time, it was obvious that she was bright and creative and excellent at bringing together groups of information that wouldn't necessarily talk to each other, but she made them talk to each other in really exciting and compelling ways. And that's how I see her role in public service and in public health and in science, especially in sleep.
There's a lot of myths and inaccurate information in the public about sleep and what healthy sleep looks like. Most Americans don't know much about sleep, but sleep problems are common. They're disproportionately experienced by people from low-income backgrounds and other vulnerable populations and we need people like Joelle, people who have the bona fide sleep training, who know how to do science, and who actually care deeply about these groups to interface with them and talk to them about how to sleep better and be healthier.
So I see her as kind of a sleep equity ambassador and I think science and these communities are really lucky to have her. There's been decades of research showing that different dimensions of sleep, whether we're talking about how long you sleep, whether you feel rested, the timing of your sleep, whether you're waking up frequently at night or having sleep complaints, all of those different elements of sleep feed into not only physical health, but mental health as well. Depending on the mental health condition, sometimes sleep complaints are part of the diagnosis of that condition.
Other times, complaints about sleep tend to go along with the experience of distress and acute mental health episodes. Some of the most exciting research, in my opinion, that's come out in the last five, 10 years is actually showing that sleep symptoms oftentimes precede mental health episodes. So that suggests from a public health perspective, if you wanna help people feel better, you need to start by addressing their sleep rather than ignoring it or talking about it sort of at the end of a clinical encounter or at the end of a clinical treatment.
Main Street
Odalis, you're a graduate student here at the university. What's your interaction with Joelle?
Odalis García, BA
With Joelle, just kind of broadly in the lab, I work a lot with research assistants helping build their scientific practice and literacy. And specifically with Joelle, it's been a little bit more in depth working on building her own program of research. And it's been exciting to see somebody be so passionate about topics that are so important.
And I think her passion coupled with her unique experiences is something so valuable to science that we need more of. So it's exciting to see something like this scholarship.
Main Street
As an educator, what does it mean to be a mentor to someone like Joelle?
Katherine A. Duggan, PhD
It means I have a lot of fun, honestly. I really enjoy it. I'm really lucky and she's brilliant, she's creative.
So rather than imposing what I think the need of science might be, I try to give Joelle the space to figure out what she thinks is needed in science and the kind of project she's interested in pursuing. And then I try to give her the support needed to actually do that work in a scientifically rigorous way where it can also be used to help people. So we have a lot of fun doing good science and I get to sit back and do the funnest parts and watch her and Joelle, her and Odalis grow in their skills.
Main Street
You see yourself in that role?
Odalis García, BA
I feel a similar, I'm growing into it. I have a lot of learning of my own to do, but it's very nice to be at a place where there are things that I do know and even things that some people don't always know you need to do. A lot of people refer to it as the hidden curriculum of graduate school and things, higher education in general.
That's something that I'm slowly uncovering myself. So that's something that I wanna do for others as well.
Main Street
What does it mean to you that one of your students has been this successful and now recognized nationally with this scholarship that she has won?
Katherine A. Duggan, PhD
It's a dream come true because when I say she's brilliant, that is an understatement. That's the understatement of the year. And I think that science in these communities need folks exactly like Joelle and to be able to give her this platform, the financial support so that she can develop these interests, financial support to actually go out into communities and talk to these community members about what does good sleep look like for you and what do you need to sleep better rather than us over in our ivory or brick towers or whatever imposing our structure of what we think that needs to look like. That's extraordinary. And it's the kind of stuff that I would think is impossible.
Like, oh, if only we had X. But we actually have it in the awarding of this scholarship to Joelle. So it's extraordinary.
And it's one of the best things, I think, that has happened to an undergraduate in my lab in the 15 years or so that I've been mentoring them.
Main Street
Congratulations. Dr. Cat Duggan and also Odalis García, both in the Department of Psychology at North Dakota State University, thank you for joining us.