CAMPUS NEWS
CARLOW UNIVERSITY NAMED TO PRESIDENT’S HIGHER EDUCATION COMMUNITY SERVICE HONOR ROLL
For the eighth-straight year, Carlow students, faculty, and staff were recognized for their efforts within the community by being named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. Launched in 2006, the Honor Roll is a national recognition program that highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community problems and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement. Carlow has been selected to the Honor Roll ever since the program’s inception. “These institutions have inspired students and faculty alike to roll up their sleeves and work alongside members of the community to solve problems and improve their neighbors’ lives,” said Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National Community Service. Carlow students help out locally with programs like the Youth Media Advocacy Program and the annual Student Government Association Fashion Show which benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters. Students help out locally, nationally, and globally through service opportunities such as Alternative Spring Break. “This is a testament to the commitment of faculty, staff, and students in living out the tradition of the Sisters of Mercy, our founders,” said Jessica Friedrichs, Carlow’s coordinator of service-learning. “The Mercy mission is one that sees service in the pursuit of social justice as an essential component to liberal arts education.”
For a complete list of Honor Roll awardees visit www.nationalservice.gov.
WINTER 2013
CARLOW UNIVERSITY BIOLOGY PROFESSOR RECEIVES “FIGHTING SPIRIT AWARD” AT COACHES VS. CANCER EVENT Laura Schatzkamer’s Triumphant Battle Against Breast Cancer Earns Honor at Event at Heinz Field Laura Schatzkamer, an assistant professor of biology at Carlow University, received the “Fighting Spirit Award” at the Coaches vs. Cancer TipOff Madness event, one of the premier basketball events of its kind in the country and hosted by many area universities’ men’s and women’s basketball coaches, at Heinz Field on October 2, 2013. In the fall of 2008, Schatzkamer, who teaches anatomy and physiology to nursing students, and is the faculty athletics representative and advisor to Carlow’s dance division, felt a lump in her left breast. “It was small, but clearly not normal,” she recalls. “My first thought was, ‘This can’t happen to me, I’m a healthy person, and my body wouldn’t let me down.’” That small lump turned out to be cancer, and she had surgery in October 2008. As she waited for the surgery to heal and her chemotherapy to begin, she continued to teach her classes, but she was aware of a change in her perspective. “My world was a new one,” she says. “Instead of syllabi, I was thinking survival.” She completed her chemo treatment in time to be at the pool for Memorial Day weekend 2009. One year later, she became a paddler on the Pink Steel dragon boat team, the Breast Cancer Survivor Division of the Steel City Dragon Boat Association. She has not stopped paddling since, and was featured in a television commercial for UPMC along with the rest of her Dragon Boat racers last year. (For more information about dragon boat racing, please visit www. steelcitydragons.org.) “We are a group of women who hang tight together, are there for each other, and have a bond that I don’t believe I would have found under any other circumstances,” said Schatzkamer when she accepted the award. “I accept this award on behalf of my team, because every member of Pink Steel has a fighting spirit.”
Two years ago, Schatzkamer, a Fox Chapel resident, became a personal trainer, specializing in helping other survivors get back into shape after cancer. “I’m feeling healthy, energetic, and I welcome every new day,” she says. But even with this positive attitude, Schatzkamer knows there is more to be done, and her message is both direct and simple. “Cancer can strike anytime or anyone,” she says. “Just when you least expect it, your world can be turned upside down. We celebrate survival, but—the truth is—we don’t all survive. There is more to do, a real and final cure to be found, and I hope it comes soon.”
Laura Schatzkamer
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