Community involvement and making a positive difference means a lot to Cheyanne Nance-Butler. From the beginning of her time here at Life U, she has strived to give back in excellence and out of abundance.

Nance-Butler grew up in Portland, Oregon with her brother and her mom. She made her way to Life U by way of South Carolina and a fateful chiropractic assistant position that inspired her to pursue a chiropractic career.

Nance-Butler expressed that she always knew she wanted to be a doctor and that she dreamed about working in the healthcare profession from a young age, given her passion for the health sciences. Yet, she lacked clarity on what kind of doctor she wanted to be.

Pediatrics seemed like a contender at first and is still a major interest for Nance-Butler. Still, she searched for a renewed approach to health care that prioritized the needs of the patient.

“There was always this sense of ‘Why aren’t the doctors as helpful as they could be?’ And I always had that in the back of my mind, because I felt like there could be more that they could be doing,” Nance-Butler said.

Nance-Butler has some personal experience with this question, with health concerns that have occurred in her own life. At 15 years old, she was involved in a car crash. From that point on, she has dealt with chronic migraines and struggled to find attentive care that truly met her needs.

“That really left me feeling unsettled and unsure about what I was going to do with myself at that point. Not because I didn’t believe in health care anymore, but I just didn’t know where to go from that,” she reflected.

After working for a few years, Cheyanne landed what she thought was “just another office job” but in reality was a chiropractic assistant role under the supervision of Life U alumnus Dr. Jared Jodon. Dr. Jodon’s practice is Jodon Chiropractic Clinic, located in Ridgeland, South Carolina.

Working in a chiropractic environment helped to open Nance-Butler’s world up to new possibilities in health care.

“On Day 2 of working for [Dr. Jodon], after he had explained the principles of Chiropractic and the idea of Vitalism to me, it all kind of clicked and fell it place. I thought ‘Whoa, this is the kind of doctor I was meant to be’. Probably two or three months after that, I was seriously considering chiropractic school,” Nance-Butler said.

When she attended LIFE Leadership Weekend in July 2018 in preparation for her Fall 2019 enrollment, Nance-Butler received a wealth of information and support to fuel her endeavors.

“I appreciate that I have access to the Student Ambassadors [during and prior to my joining Life U]. So if I had a question about what a current student’s schedule might look like or the things that I could try to prepare for leading up to that time, student ambassadors were there to help reach out and give me the support that I needed,” Nance-Butler explained.

Knowing how helpful the Student Ambassadors had been for her start at Life U, Nance-Butler felt called to join the student organization to assist other students in the same way. She has been an active Student Ambassador for about six quarters now. For those that don’t know, Student Ambassadors is a student organization that represents the President’s Office and the vision of Life University as liaisons for prospective students, leaders in healthcare professions and the larger community.

Nance-Butler appreciates the support network and community she has cultivated at Life U. She enjoys that clubs and student events have returned to campus, and now she has the happy task of managing her time to make sure she can do everything she wants to do.

“Get involved. It doesn’t really matter what you get involved with; just find something that speaks to you and you love doing and stick with it.” Nance-Butler said.

 

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