Even though someone might be called a trailblazer, psychology major Lily Hager said the only reason she was able to make the change she has because of the women who came before her.
The Women of Marshall Awards happened Monday, April 7, at 3 p.m. The Women’s Center awarded four recipients and highlighted the many women here at Marshall University.
Hager, award winner of catalyst for change, said “I’ve been involved with Delta Zeta, my sorority, and it was the first organization I got involved with on campus, and from there, I mean, my eyes got very bright when I saw all the opportunities I was able to access from being in a student organization.”
Hager said the influence of women and people here at Marshall who offered encouragement was the force that drove her to continue her work in advocacy.
“I had a lot of really awesome women who obviously lifted me up and encouraged me to go for different things,” Hager said. “I have gotten involved with protests with the ALCU on campus, distributing Plan B, condoms and those kind of things to women in crisis. That kind of work really touched me, so then I started to apply that towards my degree and started to create a specialty in harm reduction programming.”
Hager plans to continue her work throughout rural communities and to implement her work throughout rural communities to improve education.
“Once I get into my grad school program in the fall, I am wanting to work on that a little bit more, hopefully implement that at high schools and colleges,” Hager said, “so that people are just a little bit more educated on alcohol, safe sex and those kinds of things. Especially in a rural area, accessing that kind of information can be hard. I really want to be able to create that kind of structure and be able to distribute it to schools.”
Hager said after an incredibly traumatic event happening to her in her junior year, she finally found the courage from the Title Ⅸ Office to speak up and be a person that supports the people that are experiencing what she once went through.
“When I finally, like, broke, I was like, ‘I need to do something about this. I need to take this person to court. I can’t take this anymore. I need to speak up,’” Hager said. “Having the community of people that I had, both in the sorority, in the psychology club, faculty in the Title Ⅸ Office – everybody was so supportive of me that I wanted to be able to give that support to other people.”
Even though it can be scary, Hager said it should never be embarrassing to reach out and get the help you need to find the resource that will change your life.
“I got into bad situations because of alcohol because I didn’t know what I was doing to my own body,” Hager said. “I didn’t know the danger of these things, like I was never educated on it. I wanted other people to get that education and to also see that these resources are available. It was kind of, like, scary and a little embarrassing at first. When I had to go to the office, I very quickly realized it’s not that scary. It does not have to be scary if you have somebody there to support you. I wanted to be that support person. I wanted to be the person that didn’t let somebody go through that alone.”
Though Hager might have been awarded the title catalyst for change, she said she only feels like a small gear in the machine. There have been women that have paved the way for her and all the things she’s been able to do.
“I appreciate the labels that people have given me,” Hager said. “The trailblazer, the catalyst, everything else – and this is not me trying to be like, ‘Oh, I’m humble, whatever.’ I seriously feel like such a small gear in this whole machine that’s been going on. The ALCU has been doing work on campus for decades, the Women’s and Gender center – and yes I always call it the Women’s and Gender Center; I don’t care that they changed the name. They’ve been doing work for decades; I just showed up. If anybody was like, ‘Oh yeah, I want to be a catalyst for change, what do I do to do that?’ I would just show up. Just start showing up, and you’ll get more confident as you go along with it.”
Confidence goes a long way. Hager said she feels like college students and the younger generation has felt this idea that their lives are just starting, and it’s being taken away from them. She said it can be incredibly overwhelming, but the real way to find change is to start small.
“If you find yourself in a place of the algorithm scaring you over and over again with the same rhetoric, take a break,” Hager said. “Walk outside and see that there is change happening in your community. If your biggest concern is I want to be a part of change and I want to change something, start local. Go to the protest outside the courthouse. Go to the ones that are on campus. I know it doesn’t seem like people are noticing, but trust me, they are. So just start small.”
Soleil Woolard can be contacted at [email protected].
