At the age of 20, Sharlee Jeter, C'2001, received life-alternating news after discovering a lump on her neck. She was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in November 2000, and the news catapulted the senior
mathematics major into one of the biggest fights of her life.
Although her parents, Dorthy and Charles, assumed their daughter would pause her education at Spelman and return to New Jersey, Jeter had a different plan. She continued her education with the support of her Spelman sisters and community. Her oncologist, Stephen Nimer, M.D., also convinced her parents to allow her to complete her degree at Spelman while making regular doctor's appointments in Manhattan on the weekend.
With the support of her family and close friends, Jeter was officially cancer-free seven months later in May 2001.
“I turned something really bad into something that, for me, was a badge of honor,” says Jeter.
In her new book,
"The Stuff: Unlock Your Power to Overcome Challenges, Soar, and Succeed,"
Jeter and her co-author Dr. Sampson Davis explore the hidden strengths that propel individuals to overcome hardships. They give accounts of their own stories, as well as, interviews with "ordinary-but-extraordinary" (Davis,
New York Post) individuals.
The book, two years in the making, reveals eleven attributes Jeter and Davis found common to those who overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.
Today, Jeter is the president of the
Turn 2 Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 1996 by her brother, New York Yankees' Derek Jeter, to motivate young people to live a healthy lifestyle.