Biology professor Renee Chosed knows what it\u2019s like to lose a friend to cancer. As a post-doctoral researcher at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston), Chosed and her colleagues worked with a lab manager who was diagnosed with breast cancer. The team, which was studying leukemia at the time, supported their friend throughout her two-year fight with the disease\u2014and not only with mere words. \u201cTwice during her treatment we participated in Race for the Cure with her, and she absolutely loved it. About two years after her diagnosis and treatment, a PET scan revealed she had developed bone cancer\u2014she died maybe three months after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The irony isn\u2019t lost on Chosed. \u201cShe spent her whole life researching cancer and was treated at MD Anderson by the best doctors, in the best cancer research hospital in the world, but she still lost the battle . . . there are some things you just can\u2019t control,\u201d says Chosed.<\/p>\n
A scant few of us can say we haven\u2019t been touched by cancer in some way. Which is part of the motivation behind Chosed\u2019s first year seminar, The Big C: Cancer, Biology and Beyond. \u201cOn the first day, we went around the room and talked about how cancer has affected our lives. Every single person had a story\u2014a relative, a friend, a friend of a friend\u2014even one of my students was a survivor,\u201d recalls Chosed.<\/p>\n
Fourteen freshmen, mostly pre-health majors, opted to take the class which was jammed with community service (Race for the Cure), four guest speakers (two of those cancer survivors), a hospital tour, lab experiments, projects, movie clips, and episodes of the course\u2019s namesake, The Big C<\/em> (Showtime).<\/p>\n The cornerstone event for the class was Race for the Cure. The entire class participated in the benefit, and, counting family members and friends who showed up for the race over family weekend, the Furman contingent numbered more than fifty supporters. In the weeks prior to the race, the class sold purple \u201cTeam Furman\u201d t-shirts, raising over $500 for Race for the Cure.<\/p>\n Racing and raising money for the cure aside, the classroom experience was no less lively. In a setting reminiscent of a House<\/em> episode, students gathered around a conference room table to wrestle with cancer on biological, psychological, religious, and social fronts. Biology major Will Lorenz, who as a young boy lost his sister to cancer, says the seminar reshaped his thinking about the disease. \u201cSome of the smartest scientists and doctors working on this disease night and day . . . but we still don\u2019t fully understand all the aspects of it. That\u2019s why I love learning about it . . . it\u2019s a powerful disease that challenges science and medicine to continually get better.\u201d<\/p>\n Chemistry and Chinese double major Karlee Wroblewski especially enjoyed the group dynamics of the seminar. \u201cWe were all very engaged and willing to respond to discussion prompts and argue complex topics for the full class period\u2014our conversations a lot of times spilled into the hallway as we walked to our next class.\u201d Wroblewski says some of her truest friends have come from the class, not to mention the strong student\/professor bond forged between her and Chosed. \u201cWe have scheduled a coffee reunion, and I\u2019m looking forward to getting together with the first group of people who made me so excited to be at college and so proud to call Furman home,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n After examining all aspects of cancer from a scientific and genetic perspective to social and religious issues, Chosed says the outcome was pretty dramatic. \u201cAs the class progressed, I could see the shift in assumptions and opinions about the disease.\u201d For example, Chosed says at the start of class, many students didn\u2019t realize the genetic basis for cancer; many thought the disease was random.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most significant product of the seminar? \u201cStudents learned to be more open-minded, aware and tolerant of others\u2019 views,\u201d says Chosed. \u201cI was really happy to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Biology professor Renee Chosed knows what it\u2019s like to lose a friend to cancer. As a post-doctoral researcher at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston), Chosed and her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":2585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,34,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administrative","category-admission","category-student-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}