MAHEC’s Director of Health Careers and Diversity Education Jacquelyn Hallum on Staying on the Path and Giving Back What Was Given to Her
MAHEC’s Director of Health Careers and Diversity Education Jacquelyn Hallum, MBA, MHA has had an exemplary career and has used her strength, character and courage to truly make a difference in this world. Her journey was never an easy one, and began with a startling amount of heartbreak and trauma. Hallum was born in a military family while her father was stationed in Northamptonshire, England. After he was killed in an auto accident when Hallum was only five months old, the family returned to the United States and settled in Asheville, NC to be closer to his parents.
When Hallum was seven, her mother died of lupus and racism because she was denied medical treatment due to a lack of hospital beds that were available to people of color. Hallum’s seventeen-year-old sister Frances turned down a full ride to Spelman College to stay home to raise her and her twelve-year-old Brother. “In spite of her age, she got us all the way through everything,” Hallum says of her precious sister. “She was a brilliant human being. She was always showering me with wisdom and grace. She poured everything into me. I had a big legacy to live up to.” Hallum says that she was a handful as a child, and maybe even a bit of a brat. “I had too many losses,” Hallum says of her childhood. “I was mad.” She recalls that there was no emphasis on psychotherapy in the black community in the 1960s, so she only had her sister, grandmother and the church to rely on.
“She never gave up,” Hallum says, comparing her sister’s support to a kind of bank account. “She kept depositing into my “life account”- not with money, but with something more valuable. The good thing about it not being money was that I could never use it up. At some point I thought it was time to start withdrawing from that amazing account.”
Hallum’s and her siblings’ education were paid for by the Veterans’ Widows and Orphans Fund. She was not always the best student, but Hallum recalls the advice she received from a VA orphan’s advocate who came to speak to her when her grade point average started to dip. “There was no finger-wagging,” she explains, “He said, ‘I want you to treat school like a job. Work every day from 8-5. And if you get a break, go to the library.’” She says this simple advice changed her life, and her grades shot up like a rocket ship. She has been giving her own students this advice for decades.
Throughout college, Hallum continually encountered racism in her predominantly white classrooms. She recalls a sociology class in which her professor asked her to stand before the class to show the other students her stereotypical ‘Uncle Remus smile.’ “I tried to fight it,” Hallum says, sighing. “The whole fight of it traumatized me.” After that experience, Hallum transferred to a historically black university and earned her degree in Business Administration and Marketing.
Shortly after Hallum graduated and entered into the workforce, Frances (her sister) died due to complications during a hysterectomy at the age of 41. “All this tragedy will let you know why I chose this vocation and why I stayed on this path,” Hallum says. “I wanted to be the person that [my sister] wanted me to be. I decided to give back what was given to me.”
While working as a quality analyst, Hallum had been helping a family friend do some support work at her long-term care facility, MACHEN Family Care Home. After her sister died, Hallum decided to join the staff there full-time. When the friend passed away, Hallum took over the business as the administrator for the next 14 years and renamed the business Hallum Family Care Home.
After that, Hallum joined the ranks of the other local black business owners. She joined the Black Business and Professionals League and even served as the president for five years. She had plans to go back to school with the intention of becoming a lawyer, but then a job opened up at MAHEC, and Hallum just couldn’t turn it down.
Hallum attended Pfeiffer University to earn her MBA and MHA degree while simultaneously working at MAHEC, and eventually went on to become MAHEC’s Director of Health Careers and Diversity Education. “It was like the sun shone on my life,” Hallum says of her time at MAHEC. “I just flourished, and twenty-seven years later, here I am. Not saying there weren’t struggles and many bumps in the road, but I landed on my feet in spite of the many barriers.”
In her role, Hallum works with high school students, as well as medical learners, to help educate them on the multitude of professional roles that exist within the medical field. “You’re not born knowing all aspects of healthcare,” she explains. “My role is to expose them to as many aspects of healthcare as possible.” Hallum is also working to not only diversify the medical workforce, but to also make it a more welcoming environment to people of all races, sexual orientations and backgrounds.
Through her job, Hallum has had the opportunity to contribute to (and in many cases, to start) multiple programs to fight racism and champion diversity, including the Minority Medical Mentoring Program, the MAHEC Scholars Program, and the Spirit of MLK, Jr. Planning Committee. She has received many awards and acknowledgements for her work over the years, but the one she is most proud of is the Suzanne DeFerie Lifetime Achievement Award which she was presented with earlier this year by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce as part of their WomanUP initiative.
Hallum admits she never planned to stay in Asheville. She thought at some point she would move to a town with higher wages, a lower cost of living, a larger community of black professionals, and more resources for people of color.
Despite that, Hallum says Asheville does feel like her hometown. She also takes pride in the fact that her work has helped to make Asheville a place where students of color feel they can come home to. “We have not arrived by any means,” she says of the Asheville community. “It’s a work in progress. You can’t change an environment that has been predominantly white overnight. You have to build it. You have to be very intentional.”
As of October 7th, Hallum will be retiring. While she acknowledges that she is a bit daunted by the lack of the day-to-day rigors of work that will be in her environment after she retires, Hallum has no intention of letting that slow her down. “I really enjoy diversity and equity work,” she says. “I want to continue to teach and train.” She plans to continue her work on the numerous boards she serves on including the National Association of Medical Minority Educators and Buncombe County Health and Human Services. She will also continue to work with her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, Inc which is a multinational organization, and the Asheville Chapter of the NC A&T Alumni Association in which she serves as the chapter president.
Hallum feels that the timing of her retirement actually feels pretty appropriate. “It feels good,” she says. “All the work I have done will remain and not be in vain.” She also says the programs she helped to start at MAHEC are in good shape and that the leadership there – including a new CEO and a great president – is strong. She feels it is a good time to pass over the reins.
“So many things I do are based on the legacy of love from the women in my family: my grandmother, my mother and my sister,” Hallum says of her career, as well as her life. Now, she is excited at the prospect of the new opportunities on the horizon. “It’s interesting to see what’s going to be next…”
For more information on MAHEC, visit their website: www.mahec.net
Written by: Meg Hale Brunton