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Alumna Builds Connection During COVID
In challenging times, Harpeth Hall almuna builds connections through empathy and understanding
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREG JOHNSON
Devin Graham’s work in healthcare began with autopsies. In her senior year at Harpeth Hall, she interned in the Davidson County Medical Examiner’s office during Winterim. As she learned alongside a team of pathologists and technicians, she developed a respect for the vocation and those called to it.
“We were life's last responders,” she said, “charged with the duty of caring for those at their most vulnerable, whether they were deceased or mourning the loss of a loved one.” Through her Winterim experiences, Ms. Graham, a graduate of the Harpeth Hall Class of 2015, felt connected to that mission. After high school, she attended Brown University and continued her work in the medical examiner’s office during the summers. She spent months at a time behind the locked doors of an otherwise ordinary office, only resurfacing to return to her undergraduate studies. Through the work, she felt compassion for her community in a way she never had before. Over the last year, that role became more salient. For Ms. Graham, the pandemic underscored the importance of connection — of coming together to care for one another and lift each other up. When March of 2020 came, she watched along with the rest of the world as news reports showed refrigerated trucks pulling up to New York’s morgues. The images left her feeling that we, as a country, were not prepared for the pain and loss about to come. “We weren’t ready structurally, emotionally, or mentally,” she said. At the time, Ms. Graham was living at home in Nashville — her travel plans to Morocco canceled because of the emerging pandemic. With the support of her mother, Dr. Cherise Felix, Ms. Graham decided to volunteer her time as an assistant at the COVID-19 testing site at Nissan Stadium. “I tend to run towards a disaster rather than away from it,” she said. She began by directing traffic and was soon recruited under the management of Meharry Medical to screen patients. She continued to volunteer nearly every day until the testing center officially hired her in July 2020. She not only directed traffic but also triaged, co-managed logistics, and swabbed the inside of patients’ noses for COVID-19. More than anything, she became a source of reassurance for patients seeking answers. As cars pulled across to the asphalt and drivers stopped to meet Ms. Graham, their questions usually started with standard logistics: “How does testing work?” “When do I get my results?” “How long do I have to quarantine?” Then, there often came a pause — a silence prompted by fear and incomprehension.
Ms. Graham’s supervisor Dr. Julie Gray, a Meharry Medical College dentist who ran the drive-thru COVID testing site, reminded the team during its huddle each morning to “Be kind, do good, and love all — even when it’s difficult.” So, in the short time Ms. Graham and the patients were together, she looked into the car window through the protective visor she wore over her face — and she filled the silent space. Sometimes she cracked a joke to ease the tension. Other times it was simply asking, “How are you doing?” She invited individuals to share what was on their hearts and met that with compassion. Through those simple gestures, she made a connection with someone who had been a stranger only minutes before and showed her dedication to helping the people in her community. “Devin’s level of empathy is unsurpassed by some clinicians in our field,” Dr. Gray told The Tennessean in a January 2021 article published about Ms. Graham. “She’s keen on reading the patient and what their issue is. She has a very special way of making you feel like you’re the only person in the room.”
LEANING INTO COMMUNITY Ms. Graham carries that sense of care to the Harpeth Hall community. At Harpeth Hall, teachers and school leaders take seriously the obligation to cultivate a strong sense of community so that all students, faculty, and families feel a sense of belonging. So does Ms. Graham. “I was raised with a communal mindset, and the more I have leaned into community, the better my life has gone,” she said. “If anything, it’s important to me because it sustains me. It reminds me what’s real and what’s important.” Ms. Graham came to Harpeth Hall with a different life experience than many of her classmates. She lived across town. She was raised by a single parent. She felt the challenges of being a new 6th grade student who joined school midyear. Still, she shared connections with her classmates — her mother instilled in her the importance of the best education. So, she focused on building relationships — getting to know her new friends better and helping them get to know her. In her adult life, Ms. Graham has brought that forward. Using the communal mindset she was raised with, Ms. Graham and a group of her Harpeth Hall classmates came together over the last year to reflect on ways they can continue to make their beloved alma mater better and more beautiful than they left it. That discussion, which focused on community building, inclusivity, and belonging, brought them together to form a more profound kinship with each other. “I believe we have a responsibility to the spaces we have inhabited,” Ms. Graham said. “Harpeth Hall gave me a massive opportunity to learn all these amazing skills that would carry me far. That connection doesn’t end when you leave. It continues.” Ms. Graham also connects with current Harpeth Hall students through her work with the National Association of Independent School’s Student Diversity Leadership Conference. She first attended the conference during her junior and senior years at Harpeth Hall. After she graduated, she became a faculty facilitator. She has spent the last five years working with hundreds of students across the country collaborating in discussions of identity. At each annual conference, she reaches out to the Harpeth Hall students in attendance to say hello and reflect on what she has learned in the years since she graduated.
“There is great importance in expanding community,” she said. “It’s so important to find people who are different than you are and invite them to share. If you aren’t able to see other people’s perspectives, you aren’t going to ever bridge the gap.”
As she looks forward, Ms. Graham will continue to create spaces to come together and better understand each other.
Her work with the medical examiner’s office and at the COVID testing center reinforced to her that even the most different individuals — whether in beliefs or circumstances — have the commonality of humanity.
“They are fallible and ephemeral,” she said, “and absolutely deserving beings who require care and attention.”
