WS Chronicle

Bennett College’s Ebony Rodgers ’13 has been accepted into graduate school at the University of Arkansas on a teaching assistantship which will fund her next two years of education. She will pursue her master’s in biology with an emphasis on cancer research.

According to Rodgers, this was the good news she’s been waiting to hear.

“When I received the news, I was in complete joyful tears after previously receiving a rejection letter from another school,” she said. “I gave thanks to God, and I called my mother; we both were screaming on the phone.”

Rodgers knew early on that she wanted to pursue graduate school, but it wasn’t until she participated in the Summer Medical Dental Program at Duke University that she discovered her passion for cancer research.

Shadowing doctors in the cancer ward, Rodgers remembered a conversation she had with a young child.

“I asked [her], ‘What do you think about?’ She replied, “‘I think about when I fall asleep will I ever wake up.’ By the end of that program, she passed, and from then, I knew that moment I wanted to become involved in contributing to cancer research.”