Finalist
Charity Hamilton
Florida Gulf Coast University
Junior in Clinical Lab Science
3.65 GPA

Combine preparing for medical school along with jumpstarting a young university and you’ve got one busy woman, namely Charity Elizabeth Hamilton, 21, Florida Gulf Coast University’s own Student of the Year last year.

Having only opened in 1997, the university has benefited from the likes of Hamilton who founded FGCU’s Pre-Medical Student Organization (FPSO), served as a founding member of the FGCU Drum Line, and helped others clubs as the director of clubs and organization for the Student Government Association for which she ran for vice president. Hamilton represents the school as an Ambassador in FGCU’s CREST Program and as a Resident Advisor and Conference Orientation Leader. In spite of her involvement while taking the pre-med route as part of the Honors Program, she’s consistent in “maintaining high academic standards”, says Dr. Clifford M. Renk, her advisor and director of the honors program. “How she has the time to do that, I don’t know.” And she does it cheerfully. She has a “great personality; always bubbly,” he says. “I wouldn’t want anybody better in terms of personality. I’ve never seen her angry.”

She’s all smiles, all hours of the day. For example, she tells her residents that they “can always call me in the middle of the night,” Hamilton says. She wants them to know that she was always there, “that this is home.” In her role as RA, “she did a fine job,” says Dr. Joseph Shepard, interim dean of students. As RA and COL, she helped create a Community Development Plan that put a more comprehensive evaluation process in place for those employed and outlined strict constraints on the quality of programming required by RAs. She created new applications and job descriptions. She sat on the University Committee to hire a full-time Orientation Leader. And she helped make the first-ever Housing Conference Manual. Because of all that, she was named the Head COL for the summer semester.

It’s no wonder, then, that “she’s well-known amongst her peers,” Shepherd says, and among the administration, too. "We thought highly enough of her last year to name her Student of the Year on campus.”

“We have many fine students here at FGCU, but Charity stands out,” says Dr. William C. Merwin, president. “This is evident in the fact that she was named FGCU’s Student of the Year last year—a prestigious honor reserved for those with only the highest academic, service, and leadership qualities. She deserves to be listed among Florida’s finest.”

In getting the pre-med club established, Hamilton says that it “went through some stuff last year,” during which time she helped out. This year, she took it to the next level, so much so that she got SGA for the first time to fund her and the vice president to attend a national meeting of the American Medical Student Association in Houston, Texas. Although she established FPSO full-fledged in October, the club is a general pre-professional one that is open to all students in order to receive SGA funds. She applied to take the club to the ultimate level by getting it accepted as an AMSA national affiliate, with active membership to begin January 6, 2003.

Hamilton played cymbals in high school, so she eagerly accepted the offer to be a founding member in FGCU’s Drum Line. She thought it was a great idea and fun, too, and another opportunity to help her fledgling university grow. “This school is so small and so young, you can do so many things,” Hamilton says. “My biggest contribution is me, myself—I’m doing well,” says Hamilton, who means that she’s an example of what a FGCU student can do. When talking to others as a representative of the school, she says that “so many say, ‘FGCU who?’” She’s contributed her part by “being involved in the things I’ve been involved in.”

FGCU’s former dean of students, Dr. Greg Sawyer, says that Hamilton is “without a doubt one of the top student leaders in the state.” Sawyer, who now serves as vice president at the newly-established California State University, Channel Islands, says, “She devotes a great deal of her time to serving campus clubs and organizations while maintaining an extremely high GPA. There are not too many things that go on at FGCU that Charity isn’t involved in in some manner.”

As former advisor to the award-winning Golden Key International Honor Society chapter at FGCU, Sawyer says he “personally hand-picked Charity to be one of the vice presidents, not only for her leadership but more importantly, for her enthusiasm and the ability to get things done.”

“She’s bright, independent, hard-working,” says F. Joseph McMackin, III, partner of Quarles & Brady LLP where Hamilton worked briefly and her mother has for the past 10 years. He says she is “an excellent young woman. She makes her own way in the world.”

Her scholarships pay for tuition and books, and her RA position helped with housing. Her parents help some, but she knows she’ll need to pay her own way since her sister is about to enter college this fall. She takes her MCAT on April 20^th, and applies to medical schools on June 1^st. She’s realistic about her prospects and has a contingency plan that speaks to her character. “My number one goal and intention is to help those who can’t help themselves,” says Hamilton, who, if she isn’t accepted into medical school, will apply to “serve in the Peace Corps for one year and then decide what to do.” She’s got a win-win attitude all the way around. VAB