Getting to know you: Jada Hogg

The newest employee in USI's Multicultural Center loves a good laugh and a good nap. "I can probably go to sleep faster than anyone," Jada Hogg says. The outreach coordinator and student mentor considers flying to the remote island Tom Hanks was stranded on in the movie Castaway and snoozing under an umbrella an ultimate goal. (But, you'll never see her post about it on social media.)

Growing up in Edwardsville, Illinois, Hogg was a tomboy. Even with four brothers she "was probably the roughest." Maybe the craftiest, too. When her older brother made a habit of messing up her made bed (prompting complaints from her mother), she got even by placing a closet door on the mattress and covering it up. "He came running down the hallway and took off like Superman. Thunk! Didn't touch my bed anymore," she recalls. "I laugh with my dad to this day."

Hogg spent 10 years as a first-grade teacher before becoming an Eagle and grew up in a household where education was a priority. Her father is an Upward Bound college counselor (similar to USI's Student Support Services), and her mother is a high school Spanish and English teacher. Three of her five siblings, including her youngest brother who played basketball at USI, are also involved in education.

Like education, athletics are also in Hogg's blood. She played basketball and competed in field events and the heptathlon while earning two bachelor's degrees (biology and early childhood education) and a master's degree (teacher leadership) from Greenville University in Illinois. (She went on to help coach the basketball team for several years as well.) In 2003 she and her track and field team beat USI at a meet. "That was one of the highest that we placed that year, and we were able to get some points with the heptathlon," she recalls. "That was a very memorable occasion."

That's not all that's memorable about Jada Hogg. Let's get to know her.

Are you a big social media user?

I am not. Everybody's like, "How are you not on Facebook?" When Facebook really became big, I was doing my master's thesis project, and my project was keeping up a website in my first-grade classroom. Between me posting and changing and doing things for the website, Facebook was the furthest thing from my mind.

I am tech savvy, but I am not social media activated. I don't have any social media accounts.

I am a lurker though. I get on [my brothers' accounts], and I wonder what so-and-so is doing. So I do lurk, but it just seems like I would get addicted to it and wouldn't be able to stop.

I understand you have some strong family ties in your name. Who were you named after?

My grandmother on my father's side, her name was Ada. His version is they took the "J" from my mother's middle name and added it, because Ada was too old-fashioned at the time. So they put Jada. And my middle name is actually my maternal grandmother's name, which was Frances. I'm named after both my grandmothers, which I absolutely love.

They were huge in hospitality. I considered them Black Italian because they fed everyone and cooked for days. One grandmother had 11 children, so I have 70 first cousins and 30 second cousins, and we're still counting.

What kinds of foods would they cook?

Eggplant parmesan, linguine, which is still a favorite if I ever bring it to a potluck for work. Desserts. My grandmother used to have buckets of cookies just lining her walls. Cakes, quiche, all different flavors of quiche. And then my other grandmother, she is more of a Southern cooker. The best beef stew, macaroni, chicken and dumplings that you could ever, ever have in your life.

I collected recipes. I have most of my [maternal] Grandmother Moye's basic recipes, and that's one of my treasured keepsakes.

As an athlete who ended up playing two sports (basketball and track and field) at Greenville University, did you have any pre-competition rituals or superstitions?

Sleep. If it was before a race or after a race, my coach could always find me underneath the bleachers sleeping. Sleeping is like a medicine for me. It was the same for basketball. Sleeping for me just silenced the world. When I woke up, I was focused, I was ready.

One of my coaches one year in college passed a rule that no one could sleep [before games], and I was devastated. I played the game, and I was seeing double backboards and double balls. He rearranged the rule, so I got my ritual back. It just had some type of calming effect for me, and I could function better.

How did your 10 years as a first-grade teacher prepare you for this role as outreach coordinator and student mentor in the Multicultural Center?

What I have found is that there are a lot of fundamental concepts that come into play as a first-grade student. It's almost like the entry level to the rest of education, and it's the same thing for being a student mentor here. This is entry level for the rest of their life, the world. And so the same anxieties that they have-even in their faces, you can tell-the lack of confidence, the fear of the unknown, is the same thing that happens in a first-grade classroom.

I think a lot of the nurturing and the patience and the encouragement that you need in that [first-grade] classroom's the same that you need when you're dealing with [college] students. You can see things in them that they don't see, and you have to know how to reach into it and speak to it and encourage them until- almost like training wheels-they can ride on their own.

The MCC recently hosted its largest-ever Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Luncheon. Why is it important to acknowledge Black History?  

I am a firm believer that if you're not exposed, and if you don't have the experience, then you don't have the understanding. Black History Month for me is about celebrating humanity and community and openness.

When I was in college, I had a Japanese roommate, and I went back to her country with her and we went to Hiroshima. I remember standing there [in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park], and I was your typical American, just very, "Oh my goodness." And I could see her just stand next to me and kind of quiet me. And so as I looked around, I understood.

As an African American you understand we've also had our injustices. But in that moment, it didn't matter what our injustices were and what I felt like I could identify or sympathize with them. In that moment, it was empathy. It was one of those things-understanding what their pain was, and how I represented being an American in that moment, not a black American who also understood the same thing.

Black History Month is the same thing: you recognize someone else's pain or you recognize someone else's struggle and you don't try to justify it or say, "I didn't do" or anything like that. It's about recognizing that it's a humanity thing. It's a community thing, that we all can feel this, we all can go through this. And for not just black students, but white students, understanding the shoulders we stand upon. Who came before, who did this and who did that, and where do we get these sayings that we see all the time and we don't even attribute.

It's about seeing humanity in all different frames and references so that you can identify it with your own and see what the similarities are and see what the differences are and appreciate them, because that's really what life is all about.

Finish this sentence. I admire people who …

I admire people who display quiet wisdom. I am a huge observer.

There's a quote by Martin Luther King, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." And there is a poem [Success] by Ralph Waldo Emerson where he says success is "to laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children."

That, for me, is what I admire most, when you can really see someone who has lived and experienced and still has a certain humility and happiness and joy about life, even though they've gone through so much and experienced so much. I admire them very much.