Stephanie Anne Urbanawiz, a graduate student pursuing a degree in physician assistant studies (PAS) at Grand Valley State University, died Feb. 28 at the age of 29 after battling breast cancer. The PAS program and the Urbanawiz family have established a scholarship fund in her name that will benefit GVSU’s PAS department.

Andrew Booth, an assistant professor and chair of PAS, described Urbanawiz as an incredible student.

“She was incredibly dedicated,” Booth said. “She had cancer for a full year while going through the program and had an incredible grade point average, an incredible amount of integrity and she was compassionate about helping others.”

Booth said the PAS program and the family are hoping to make it an endowed scholarship and are hoping they can raise enough money for it to be an annual scholarship. All of the details haven’t been worked out yet, but they’re planning on the scholarship being given to an individual PA student and having it be active within a year or two.

“As far as the qualifications, we do know that we want to use her as an example of the type of recipient we want to award this scholarship to,” Booth said. “Someone that comes from a more rural area, or someone that has some previous experience or someone that has been affected by breast cancer. We’ll take a lot of input from family and friends to identify key characteristics that she had that we can use as a gauge for this. Dedication is definitely one.”

Urbanawiz was from Muskegon but born in Decatur, Ill. She did her undergraduate studies at Central Michigan University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a major in chemistry, and she worked as a radiology tech and phlebotomist at Mercy Hospital prior to coming to the PAS program at GVSU.

“In both of her careers at school, she was always the top of her class,” Booth said. “She was extremely intelligent, and she was dedicated and resilient. She was going through chemo during her schooling, and she never missed anything and never complained or asked for anything. She was always so professional and did an incredible job in the program. We want to honor that and let people know what an awesome individual she was and what an excellent provider she would have became.”

On top of the scholarship in her name, the PA program will be doing Relay for Life in her honor. If you would like to contribute to the scholarship, go to www.gvsu.edu/giving.