The University’s chapter of Colleges Against Cancer@@http://asuo.uoregon.edu/studentorgs.php@@ kicked off a week of events with the showing of “More Than Skin Deep,” @@http://www.morethanskindeep.org/@@a documentary highlighting the dangers of tanning and increased sun exposure, Wednesday night in Lawrence Hall.
“Colleges Against Cancer is an ASUO group that puts on events throughout the year,” University senior Mary Beth Myers@@can only find http://uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/Mary%20Myers/33381@@ said. “It is mostly a cancer-awareness group. One of the biggest parts of that is Relay For Life.”@@http://www.relayforlife.org/@@
“It’s a way for Relay For Life to be connected to the University,” junior Autumn Henry-Darwish said.@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Autumn+S+Henry-Darwish+@@
The focus of the film was Melanoma, the most common form of cancer found in people ages 25-29@@http://www.melanomafoundation.org/facts/statistics.htm@@. The film featured subjects who had been afflicted with the disease as young as 15 years old and spoke of the dangers of both indoor and outdoor tanning.
“There are more skin cancer cases a year than all other cancer cases combined,” University senior Lauren Hawkins@@http://uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/Lauren*Hawkins@@ said. “Just knowing friends who go to the river each day in the summer and don’t think about sunscreen as being an issue, it was certainly something I’d thought about (before the film).”
The event was put on in large part due to a $1,000 grant that CAC got from the Holden Center@@http://leadership.uoregon.edu/@@. The money that wasn’t put toward documentary screenings allowed for the CAC to have a booth at University Day where they’ll be handing out sunscreen and raffling off skin cancer prevention items.@@The link says Holden Leadership Center, but I promise it’s the Holden Center.@@
Both Hawkins and Myers said that it was important for students to be aware of the dangers of overexposure to the sun, especially during the recent period of unusually warm weather that has brought droves of students outside to tan.
“It’s spring term, it’s a really nice time to be outside,” Myers said. “It’s really important for students to understand the risks they’re putting toward their bodies as they hang out with friends.”
As with many people on campus, many members of the University’s CAC group have a personal connection to cancer and it’s helped them to better educate the community.
“Cancer is unfortunately one of those diseases that touches every student group,” Myers said. “I myself am a two-time breast cancer survivor, and that has helped me to get more involved in my community and to educate my professors and my peers. Skin cancer is one of the most easily preventable cancers there is.”
Colleges Against Cancer reminds students that tanning can become life-threatening
Daily Emerald
May 15, 2012
0
More to Discover