When the Story Blesses the Kingdom- Number 4 #becauseofconcordia

My CUAA Story- By Joel Maier  

(Shared with permission.)

Everyone’s experience at Concordia University Ann Arbor (CUAA) is unique as it is a personal experience. Mine is unique for those reasons and more specifically, because of the duration I was at Concordia. I only attended CUAA for my Junior and Senior year.

During my junior year of high school, I was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, medulloblastoma. I endured a 10+ hour surgery, 6 weeks radiation, and a full year of chemotherapy. Even after treatment was finished for the next couple years, I was continually attending checkups and receiving test to make sure the cancer had not come back. I choose to stay close to home for help from my family in managing my care and attended community college my first two years.

It was through my experience with cancer that I felt I wanted to find a profession to give back. To help people in the same way so many had helped my family and me. Concordia Ann Arbor provided me this outlet, the ability to give back. At Concordia I entered the Family Life Program and specialized in Child Life. Before even enrolling, staff from CUAA, Ben Freudenburg and Kara Doyle, sat with me and helped me discover Child Life. It is a profession that was perfect, one that I didn’t know I was looking for. As a Child Life Specialist at Mott Children’s Hospital, I was blessed to use my own experiences with the training of loving, caring faculty at CUAA to work with countless patients and their families. We helped children navigate the hospital system, a scary place, walking with them through various procedures from an IV to an invasive surgery. I worked in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) so I also figuratively and literally held the hand of family members during the grieving process when a child passed away.

Concordia Ann Arbor has impacted so many students like me. This positive impact does not stop there! That care was extended to every child I helped through a procedure, every crying parent I supported. These are some of those people who have been impacted by CUAA without even attending CUAA. Think about all the alumni of CUAA and all the individuals they impacted. The positive impact of CUAA has been nuclear and the expressed closure of CUAA will have negative repercussions. I will continue to pray for President Ankerberg, the CUWAA board of regents, and the decisions they will be making. I pray the communication that is urgently needed to shine light on this situation takes place. I pray that the quickness of the decision that President Ankerberg discussed in his email reporting the news will transition into a quickness for transparency. More information of their “financial analysis” needs to be communicated. It feels like nuclear weapon launch codes were unnecessarily included in the decision.

John 1: 5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”

#becauseofconcordia

Joel Maier

Joel currently serves as a pediatric

behavioral therapist 

at the West Arbor Trinity Health

 IHA Medical Group office.