编者注:Dr. Rebecca Chopp ' 74将在4月20日的奖学金晚会上发表主旨演讲. 欲知详情，请浏览 2q2.designesamaison.com/gala2024.
Bemoaning an unhappy fate is not for Rebecca Chopp ’74.
The results of a classical, 文科教育正在帮助她，并帮助她把怪物放在他们的位置上. The biggest monster is named “Alzheimer’s.”
在希腊神话中，珀尔修斯用众神的礼物杀死了蛇发女怪美杜莎. Chopp sees orders from her doctors as the gifts of exercise, 营养, creativity and sleep to keep memory loss at bay.
无论如何, Chopp was one of the top educators in the country, the first female chancellor of the University of Denver (DU). 在那之前, 她是科尔盖特大学和斯沃斯莫尔学院的第一位女校长，并在埃默里大学和耶鲁大学担任领导职务.
肖普有过许多职业:被任命为卫理公会牧师, professor of theology, 学者、作家, besides university administrator. Her latest career is Alzheimer’s advocate and activist. 2019年3月，当她被诊断出患有轻度认知障碍(MCI)和阿尔茨海默氏症的早期阶段时，这一探索就强加给了她.
“当我被诊断出来的时候，我非常沮丧，非常害怕，”Chopp说. “My mother and both grandmothers had dementia. Each had different types; they were all scary to me.”
这一诊断迫使她在担任校长五年后，于2019年从DU退休，享年67岁. The stress of such a high-profile job was detrimental.
她和她的丈夫, 弗雷德的犹, 为失去像她这样的头脑可能意味着什么而悲伤了大约一年, 一年半. 然后，她做了丽贝卡·苏·乔普(Rebecca Sue Chopp)在遇到问题时经常做的事情:她研究了问题，然后直面它.
She’s put the results of that research into her latest book, 还是我: Accepting Alzheimer’s Without Losing Yourself, published in February.
“你可能没有意识到你正在读一本千亿国际登录文科的书, 但我认为这本书是我一生和事业中致力于文科的最重要的举动,Chopp写道 还是我.
在萨利纳长大的过程中，我从小就养成了习惯和态度, mindsets that have served her well. 她家住在城里，但也务农——两全其美, going between town and farm, 她说.
“I think there is something to the Midwest, being raised in that rural life, that you just have to accept what life gives you她说。, 比如天气.
她是从听她的农民祖父谈论天气及其对作物的影响中学到这一点的.
她的父亲也是如此，他的“巨大的职业道德”给了她灵感.
“尤其是我父亲，他是那种你必须抓住机会的人，”她说. “He had no education in terms of college, but he built a couple of small companies, and he always knew how to see around a corner, see an opportunity and grab it.”
她说，他会在半夜起来工作. 她经常和他一起起床，读书或做自己的项目. 这样就养成了每晚只睡四五个小时的习惯. It enabled her to add about 20 hours of work to every week, al虽然 now she’s not so sure it was her best idea. 研究表明睡眠不足和老年痴呆症之间存在联系, and Chopp now gets about 12 hours of rest a day.
她的文科教育是她的基础，除了提供神话般的榜样. She sees all her careers as promoting the liberal arts, considering herself a teacher even while an administrator.
“对我来说, education was so enlarging, 我喜欢在千亿国际登录接受的文科教育她说。. “I devoted much of my life to liberal education. It’s not only about job skills, 这也是你在社会学和人类学中学到的千亿国际登录人类的观点, what you learn in religion about what drives people, the perspective you learn in psychology. 我真的认为，对我来说，帮助别人获得基本的文科教育是一个巨大的推动力.”
她说:“作为一名教育工作者，我从一年级开始就遇到了很多很棒的老师.
She took Latin in eighth grade. 她把图书馆里能找到的所有千亿国际登录灵性的书，无论是西方的还是东方的，都看了一遍.
Al虽然 her family wasn’t religious, “I was always interested in religion and spirituality她说。.
When her minister at First United Methodist Church, 米切尔埃弗雷特, suggested she go to Kansas Wesleyan to study religion, “I 虽然t it was a fabulous idea!”她说。.
他有一些奖学金让她开始，但她的父母不支持.
“在那个年龄和那个地方，我的父母真的认为我要结婚生子了, which would have been wonderful她说。. “Nothing wrong with that.”
But it wasn’t for her.
“1972年1月，我和韦斯·杰克逊和韦恩·蒙哥马利一起上了第一节千亿国际登录环境保护主义和宗教的课,肖普说。. “I was just enthralled. 有泥土，农场，土地，照料，宗教，希伯来经文. I just jumped fully into Kansas Wesleyan.”
她非常, 很忙, 她主修宗教和演讲两门专业，住在校外，经常打两份工.
“Everyone was just so supportive. I had never 虽然t of myself as particularly smart. By the time I graduated I had a lot more confidence她说。.
She graduated magna cum laude, spending her senior year at St. Paul Seminary in Kansas City.
She was still exploring.
“我不是在信仰传统的环境中长大的，但我强烈地感到被召唤，”肖普说. “这在智力上是一次很棒的经历，但也许我还没有完全准备好.”
她在神学院一年后嫁给了她的第一任丈夫，并休息了一段时间.
“Sometimes a break is so important她说。. “When I returned, I was gung-ho.”
The Methodist Church was less gung-ho about women ministers, having first ordained them only about 20 years earlier.
乔普是当时堪萨斯州仅有的两三个卫理公会女神职人员之一. 她喜欢和丈夫一起在教堂服务，但主教更喜欢推进丈夫的事业，而不是她的事业.
“I probably would not have gone on my own to get a Ph.D.她说。. “I liked serving local churches. 我爱这里的人，我喜欢讲道，我喜欢教书，我喜欢教牧关怀. But the bishop said no to my career. 俗话说，一扇门砰地关上，另一扇门就会打开.”
学术界的大门向芝加哥大学神学院敞开, where she earned her Ph.D. and taught for several years. Then Emory University in Georgia recruited her. By then, she was divorced, with a son.
“After 10 years of living in cold, 寒冷的芝加哥, the sunny South sounded interesting,肖普说。, and she spent 15 years there.
在2002年成为科尔盖特大学(Colgate University)首位女校长、2009年成为斯沃斯莫尔学院(Swarthmore College)首位女校长之前，她曾在耶鲁短暂就读过一段时间.
2014年，她接受了杜克大学的工作，因为她想住在科罗拉多州.
She still lives in Colorado, near her son and his wife and an older sister, all of whom help her carry out her doctor’s orders.
她的神经科医生告诉她要快乐地生活——起初这让她感到困惑，但她使之成为可能.
她还被告知尝试生活方式干预:地中海式饮食, 每天锻炼几个小时，做一些有创意的事情.
Hiking was a long-time interest of hers. 现在, 虽然, instead of hiking in mountains in foreign lands, 她和巴蒂一起远足, a Pomeranian-Huskey mix, in the Rocky Mountain foothills near where she lives. 除了徒步旅行，她还参加瑜伽、芭蕾、力量训练和跆拳道等活动.
为了在她的大脑中创造新的神经通路，她和姐姐一起学习绘画. After trying several artistic styles, learning mostly through classes on Zoom, she has settled on portraits, which also helps her memory. Chopp writes about what each subject means to her, 在她去世后，她将收到她的肖像和随笔.
Chopp has her new career as an advocate and activist. She’s active in Alzheimer’s groups, 帮助开始一个, Voices of Alzheimer’s, in Colorado that is just for people dealing with Alzheimer’s. She serves on boards; spoken on podcasts, 比如头脑风暴, by Us Against Alzheimer’s; and filmed a TEDx talk in November about her diagnosis and living with joy.
她说，在诊断后的四年里，她的轻度认知障碍症状几乎没有恶化.
The gods — like Perseus — willing, helped by her lifestyle changes, that will be the case for a long time.
Story by Jean Kozubowski
