With brains, beauty and a strong work ethic, Lipscomb alumna Kayla Ford is a triple threat. Ford graduated from Lipscomb last year and is now studying for her Master of Arts in religion at Yale Divinity School.
While at Lipscomb, Ford was a part of the student team that created Ed Pack Global, a backpack company with the vision of eradicating poverty through education. Ed Pack Global partners with Mi Esperanza and Nashville’s own Thistle Farms, two companies that focus on improving the lives of underprivileged women.
“Ed Pack started with my passion for women’s education,” Ford said. “The socioeconomic status of women is one of the single most significant factors for a country’s growth and development potential. When women are marginalized or oppressed, a country suffers. When women are empowered to contribute economically and socially, a country prospers.”
Mission minded, Ford also served on mission trips to Guatemala and New York City with Lipscomb Missions and served as chaplain for Phi Sigma her senior year.
“As chaplain, I was in charge of coordinating and planning our sisterhood retreat, which was our spiritual event of the year,” Ford said. “I tried to create an atmosphere that was completely loving, accepting and encouraging, because that kind of unconditional love and intimacy is what changes lives.”
Ford has continued to excel post-graduation. She is studying at Yale Divinity School and getting the opportunity to learn from some of today’s top researchers, scholars and theologians.
“I chose divinity school because the questions I was asking were about religion and how religion works and is perceived in a postmodern world,” Ford said. “I’m in divinity school because I needed my faith to make more sense. I wanted to have a more informed, comprehensive Christian worldview before I go out into the world.”
In the future, Ford said she would like to see more women leaders in the church, and she sees philosophy and STEM careers as areas that women should be encouraged to pursue. She disagrees with the particular narratives that women, specifically “southern women,” have to buy into a specific lifestyle solely based on their gender.
“I’ve felt pressure to conform to the image of a wife that stays at home, minds her manners, keeps after the kids, obeys her husband and doesn’t speak in church,” Ford said. “This conception of womanhood is largely problematic and oppressive to me and doesn’t allow women to fully heed God’s call for their lives.”
Ford claims the ability to be “both tender and strong, fragile and tough, sensitive and fierce” is women’s greatest strength, citing Brené Brown, Meryl Streep, Alice Walker and Eleanor Roosevelt as role models.
“We need more of women’s influence everywhere,” Ford said. “The world would benefit from more sensitivity, creativity, listening and nurturing.”
This story is the third feature in Jade Spilka’s “Women of Lipscomb” series, in light of Women’s Empowerment Week