Jennifer Ettema wanted to graduate. That was her goal—plain and simple.

But that doesn’t sound very different from any of the other hundereds of thousands of students who have and who will attend NIU or even any other university for that matter, now does it? No, not really, but to Jennifer it was.

Like many students, college was important because she was the first person from her family to attend college. And she was one of the few from her group of friends back home in the Chicago suburb of South Holland to get the chance to go to college. But there was more behind her desire to graduate from college with a degree than those reasons.

To Jennifer, college was the barrier she had decided to overcome. An education was to be her accomplishment. A degree would be her reward.

Only one thing stood in her way. Death.

Jennifer died a week before this semester began—without her degree.

Her death was not sudden or even unexpected. Just as everyone else, the tall 22-year-old with blondish, shoulder-length hair and green eyes had known for a long time that death was inevitable. The only difference was she knew that she would die sooner than most people her age, and she had to live with that fact every day of her life.

As a child she had been diagnosed with a rare genetic disease called Marfans disease. A disease which weakens the veins and arteries going to and from the heart, resulting in a breakdown of the entire body’s systems and eventually heart failure.

But she never gave up her hope that one day a cure would be found, and so she continued on her quest to beat the disease and attain an education.

Jennifer made it through three and a half years of college before it became impossible for her to return. Through failing eyesight making reading and writing a chore requiring more than double the normal time and effort. Through bouts with depression and memory loss caused by lack of oxygen able to get through her system. Through hospital visits and surgeries keeping her from attending classes, but not from still completing what assignments she could from her bed.

Her positive attitude and will to fight took her far, often farther than anyone expected her to go. That is what she is remembered for today.

Friends and faculty remember her not because she always had the right answers or the top grades, but instead because she was willing to work to acheive her best despite the odds that were stacked against her.

Because of her determination to fight for an education, students are sponsoring a dance-a-thon Saturday to raise money to start a communications scholarship in Jennifer’s memory.

The scholarship will not necessarily be for the student with the top grade point average, but instead the dedicated student who is willing to work and set an example for others through a positive and energetic outlook toward education.

The type of student who would remind friends and faculty of Jennifer.

It seemed strange to some of Jennifer’s friends that even though she knew she was dying, she still chose to go to college. They teased her because she wanted to put up with classes, tests and all the other hassles involved in getting a degree from the comunications department over anything else.

When asked about this she explained to her questioners that they simply didn’t realize or even understand just how lucky they were.

Most students probably don’t realize how lucky they are.

A chance to go to college, get an education and then move on to the working world are often taken for granted as givens. An expected part of life.

Jennifer expected to die.

Yet she was still able to look to the future with hope and plan where her college degree would take her. Just in case she managed to maintain her pace, keep one step ahead of her disease and graduate.