Beyond the Measure Episode Seven: Courtney Wallace

Beyond the Measure
Episode Seven - Courtney Wallace

In this month's episode of Beyond the Measure, our hosts, Dannie Moore and Ileanna Reyes sat down with Courtney Wallace to talk about her time teaching here at SHSU and learned about how she and the students behind the university's chapter of the National Marrow Donor Program won the Battle of the Cats. The following lays out the discussion in a convenient Q&A format. For the full Beyond the Measure experience, watch the full episode below or on YouTube.

Professor Wallace, can you tell us a little about yourself and maybe your role here at Sam Houston State University?  

I have been fortunate enough to be here at Sam Houston for around 20 years. I've had the opportunity to teach in three different departments: the Department of Public Health, the Department of Kinesiology and first-year experience. And I love every minute of it.  

Can you tell us a little bit about the Battle of the Cats? 

With the Battle of the Cats, this is an opportunity where we've been able to bring two universities together for one cause. 

We have two universities come together and try to get as many students as we can to volunteer to encourage people to join the NMDP registry. We try to get as many people as we can on the registry for NMDP, and then we use volunteer hours to show people and educate people how important this mission is. 

What first inspired you to get involved with the National Marrow Donor Program and bring it to our campus? 

It happened back in 2009. We had a volunteer come in to one of our classrooms in the Department of Health and Kinesiology, and by learning their mission and what their goal was and everything, we just thought it was something and an option that we could bring here to Sam Houston to help us grow that mission, to help save lives. 

What role or what role do students here at Sam play in advancing this mission? 

They are everything. Without the students, we would not be able to do what we're doing. They're able to come in and get educated. We train them, and then they take that education and train others across campus and just get as many people, as many people as we can on the registry to help save as many lives as we can. 

What organizations are involved with what you do? 

We have had the pleasure of working with not only organizations, but also athletic teams and everything. We've had Eta Sigma Gamma, which is a public health organization. We've had the NMDP chapter, which we started here on campus. We've had a lot of athletic teams like football, women's and men's basketball, women's soccer, women's volleyball and other organizations like fraternities and sororities and everything have been involved also. 

What have been some of the most meaningful outcomes? 

I mean, just seeing some of the ones who've been involved actually go through the process of donating and saving a life and just helping others and so that they can educate not only their peers, but also their families. We've even had other family members get involved and help now just because of what they've done and how they're educating people about this mission that we're doing. 

What advice would you give to Bearkats who want to make meaningful contributions but aren't sure exactly where to start that process? 

First thing, get involved. I mean, we have the organization, the NMDB chapter on campus and literally they can go to Bearkat HQ, sign up and we are more than happy to have anybody and everybody come join. 

We have an event every semester to get involved in and it's free; it doesn't cost anything. We're on campus, so you get to learn more about campus and learn more about the people on campus by doing that.  

Can you tell us a little bit about the beautiful trophy you won?  

We had a fun, exciting time to get with Texas State, and we came together as two schools with one mission to save lives. How it worked with everything is we took into account the number of people that got put on the registry for that semester and then also the volunteer hours from our students and everything. And we really outdid ourselves; we beat them. No questions asked.