Jorge Cantu never thought of himself as college material, preferring instead a life on the edge.<\/p>\n
A motorcycle crash changed Cantu\u2019s personal course, one that will lead him to a biology degree from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and a goal of researching spinal cord and brain injury therapies.<\/p>\n
Using a wheelchair, the 27-year-old Illinois native will participate in undergraduate commencement ceremonies scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday at the World Arena. More than 1,000 members of the university\u2019s largest-ever graduating class are expected to participate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enrolled in an anatomy and physiology course with the goal of understanding my own injury,\u201d Cantu said. \u201cFrom there, I knew that biology was it for me. I want to share what I\u2019ve learned and to learn more.\u201d<\/p>\n
At UCCS, Cantu helped form the CU Ability Club in order to unite students who face physical challenges and to highlight their attributes. He also worked to get used and repairable assistive devices to people who cannot afford them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife (Air Force Staff Sergeant Cassandra Cantu) was deployed to Afghanistan,\u201d Cantu said. \u201cShe called me one night to tell me about a child she met there who had nothing and reminded me of the wheelchair I had just sitting in the garage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conversation spurred Cantu to work with local medical equipment distributors to get the used, but repairable, wheelchair fixed and shipped it to the Middle East. But Cantu hopes his efforts will go much further. This fall, he will enroll in a PhD program at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., where he will study neuroscience and conduct research in brain and spinal cord injury therapies.<\/p>\n
UCCS, located on Austin Bluffs Parkway in northeast Colorado Springs, is the fastest growing university in Colorado and one of the fastest growing universities in the nation. The university offers 29 bachelor\u2019s degrees, 18 master\u2019s and four doctoral degrees. The campus enrolls about 7,600 students annually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jorge Cantu never thought of himself as college material, preferring instead a life on the edge. A motorcycle crash changed Cantu\u2019s personal course, one that will lead him to a biology degree from the University (Full Press Release)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pressreleases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleases.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}