Senior biology major Cooper Grove has his sights set on becoming a physician. The Dr. William E. Peightel Scholarship he received helped move him toward that goal. “This scholarship means I am able to continue my education without fear of accumulating excessive debt while here at Shippensburg,” Cooper said, adding, “I have a lot of years of schooling and payments ahead of me.”
The scholarship is awarded to biology students with an interest in health sciences and who are in the top 20 percent of their high school class.
A native of Needmore, Cooper was inspired to pursue medicine because of his grandfather. When Cooper was just a toddler his grandfather nearly died from cardiac arrest. “I credit the hard work of the medical staff for giving me the opportunity to know my grandfather. He lived another 12 years, and I got to know the greatest influence and role model in my life,” Cooper, a Southern Fulton High School graduate, explained.
A student in the Wood Honors College, Cooper stepped into many leadership positions on campus including serving on the executive board for the Honors College and the national honors fraternity, Phi Sigma Pi. He served as a peer mentor for first-year students housed on campus in the Biology Living Learning Community. He served as president of Tri-Beta National Biology Honors Society and was just promoted as a chief scribe at Meritus Medical Center, a hospital in downtown Hagerstown, Maryland.
Cooper is applying to medical schools and says he “feels tremendously prepared” for this next step thanks to the education and support he received at Shippensburg.
This Scholarship was provided through a gift to the Shippensburg University Foundation – View available scholarships and application
This story, provided by the SU Foundation, originally appeared in the Shippensburg University Magazine.
