Hannah Harley was a toddler when she was first diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and kidney issues. Throughout her young life, she’s endured surgeries, chemotherapy, regular blood tests and even stretches of time where she’s relied on wheelchairs.
Throughout it all, her faith has kept her strong.
“It’s been my rock,” says Harley, a high school senior from Bel Air, Maryland. “I have a great support community here, and when I was looking for a college, I wanted to have that kind of community.”
This spring, Harley was named one of five recipients of the full-ride J.A. Campbell Scholarship. As part of Campbell President Dr. William M. Downs’ recently announced Strategic Plan and its emphasis on enrollment growth, the scholarship was expanded this year to include more applicants. Harley competed against more than 200 high school seniors in the fall through a series of essays and on-campus interviews.
When she starts classes this fall, Harley plans to study biochemistry with a double minor in math and Christian Studies. Her dream is to work in medical research and one day cure autoimmune diseases like the ones she’s battled her whole life.
“I had a small genetics unit in my seventh grade science class, and I just thought it was so interesting to be able to explain everything going on in my body,” she says. “The biggest reason I want to study the research side of health sciences — it just interested me more in school. I have more of an aptitude toward [research] than working directly with [patients], I think. I had the opportunity to intern at Johns Hopkins in a lab, and I got to do all those experiments. And I loved it — I really love chemistry and biology and being able to work in a lab setting.I also love math and the analytical side of things. So that kind of fits into that better.
“I feel like this is what God has called me to do.”
Harley first heard about Campbell University while visiting her aunt in Raleigh, who suggested a campus tour after learning that her niece was looking for smaller, private Christian universities. She loved the campus, and the more she learned about the school online, the more intrigued she became.
“When I went for the J.A. Campbell scholarship interview, we were in one of the buildings and I was looking out over the campus just as classes were letting out,” she says. “I just saw all those students walking around. And for me, knowing that there are a lot of people around and there are so many campus activities, it made me feel great about Campbell. I really want to be involved.”
She says the interview process for the J.A. Campbell Scholarship competition put her a little outside of her comfort zone — her only previous interview was for a job in the ninth grade. But she performed well and was happy to see the essay portion included a prompt she had already written about.
That said, expectations were low that she would receive the scholarship. She says she would have been happy to just receive the gift that came with competing, but when an express letter arrived at her home this spring, all that changed.
“I was at home, we had off school that day, but I still had my college classes. So I was getting ready to leave, and my mom called me downstairs and showed me the letter,” she says. “She actually read it out loud and started crying. And I just stood there, because I was in shock. I was so surprised. But I’m so thankful for it, because I have two older brothers who are also in college at the moment. I was a little bit nervous about trying to figure out how I was going to pay for it.
“It’s just a huge weight off my shoulders, especially because I’ve been praying for a while for God to make it extremely obvious where I’m supposed to go. But then God just reaffirmed — this is where you’re supposed to be.”