The Wallace, Shatsky, Blackburn Courage Through Cancer Fund

The Wallace, Shatsky, Blackburn Courage Through Cancer Fund will provide emergency support to SDSU students who are being treated for a cancer diagnosis, or who have been affected by cancer in a significant way (i.e. family member).

If you do not meet all of these requirements in a given term, you may lose your scholarship eligibility and your scholarship may be canceled.

Requirements:

• All class levels are eligible.
• All majors are eligible.
• Recipients must be a student being treated for cancer or a student whose life has been affected in a major way by someone in their immediate family being treated for or is a survivor of cancer.
• Recipients must submit a request for assistance through the Economic Crisis Response Team (ECRT).
• Undergraduate students are not required to be enrolled full-time.
• Graduate students are not required to be enrolled full-time.
• Credential students are not required to be enrolled full-time.

Donor Profile:

On September 25, 2018, a small group of SDSU staff, donors and healthcare workers including two incredible medical oncologists, gathered in La Jolla to announce the creation of SDSU’s Wallace, Shatsky, Blackburn Courage Through Cancer Fund. The mission: to provide funding for students experiencing financial hardships due to a personal cancer diagnosis or that of a parent or guardian.

Named for her two medical oncologists, Dr. Anne Wallace and Dr. Rebecca Shatsky, Tammy Blackburn created the fund having personally experienced a devastating diagnosis first of Stage 3 breast cancer and then a re-diagnosis of Stage 4 incurable cancer.

Since its launch Sept. 25, 2018, the Wallace, Shatsky, Blackburn, Courage Through Cancer Student Success Fund has helped dozens of SDSU students stay on track to graduate. The fund has been so successful in assisting students diagnosed with cancer or who have a close family member with the illness, that alumnus Mark Mays (’69) has pledged a matching gift to create a $1 million endowment to support it. Mays lost his wife, Karen, to breast cancer in 2013 and is familiar with the many challenges associated with the illness.

For more information about the scholarship and those it has supported, we invite you to read the SDSU NewsCenter article titled, Match Gift Builds Support for SDSU Students Facing Cancer Crises.