Stamps Scholars Chloe Webster (left) and Ruby Wool (right).

March 17, 2022

Story by Ella Norton, CHC Communications 
Photos by Jasper Zhou, CHC Communications  

A year ago, Cadence Wheeler was driving home from buying track shoes in Neodesha, a small southeastern Kansas town, when she got a call from a number she didn’t recognize. She knew the area code was from Oregon, so she pulled into a parking lot. When she answered, it was the University of Oregon linforming her that she had been awarded the Stamps Scholarship. For Wheeler, everything in her “just stopped.”  

“It was absolutely one of the most amazing feelings I’ve had over the last couple of years,” she said. “To know that all the work and everything I had put in had paid off, and I would have the opportunity to come to Oregon and be a Stamps Scholar.” 

Approximately ten Stamps Scholarships are awarded each year, and cover the price of tuition, room and board, and any fees for all four years, including an endowment fund for students to travel abroad or pursue research or internships. The scholarship also guarantees admission into Clark Honors College.  

Now at CHC, Wheeler is pursuing a degree in environmental studies with a focus on environmental policy, as well as minoring in Native American studies and sustainable business. She said that in the future, she would love to work with the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Institute or on reservations facing food insecurity.  

“Growing up as a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and as a Native American, and just learning your history and seeing what is happening in the present and traveling to different reservations and seeing what needs to be done — it really sparked my passion and interest to help my community and other communities like mine,” Wheeler said.  

The Stamps Scholarship expects students to have leadership experience, community service involvement, and aspirations beyond their academic work, which is what drew in Stamps Scholar Ruby Wool.  

“It wasn’t so much that I didn’t know the program, but I connected with questions they were asking me,” Wool said, who is from Burlington, Vermont. “I think that was really cool, it felt like we had similar interests.”  

Wool entered school as a journalism major and is now considering a minor in global health after taking the CHC class, “Top Global Responses to Poverty.”  

“It’s an amazing course where we are looking at global health but also connecting it to economics,” she said. “It’s just a great way to bring in all these topics that I wouldn’t learn about with a primarily journalism major.”  

Chloe Webster, another Stamps Scholar, also enjoys the interdisciplinary factor of CHC.  

“All the other classes are very much centered toward a goal, a major, a minor, a language,” said Webster, who hails from Memphis, Tennessee. “These classes you can pick and have fun with. . . allows me to diversify my schedule while also being a part of the community.”  

Webster is currently majoring in public planning, policy, and management, and plans to join the Peace Corps after college.  

“I want to work in community development, specifically with a focus on public health equity,” Webster said. “Looking at neighborhoods, looking at communities and seeing how you can develop them in a way that is equitable for the people living in those neighborhoods.”  

Webster is also a part of the CHC ARC, the Carnegie Global Oregon FIG, Duck Corps, and coaches her friends’ intramural basketball team, and is looking forward to studying abroad. Wool is also interested in studying abroad and is currently involved with UO Students for Global Health, Warsaw Business Club, and club soccer and tennis. Wheeler is a member of the UO club wrestling team, jiu jitsu team, equestrian team, and the Net Impact Club, and wants to continue staying involved in the community and meeting different groups of people.  

“I think one of my favorite things about college is the diversity of people,” Wheeler said. “You meet so many different people from all different backgrounds and aspects of life, and being able to be in one spot together and be friends with so many people is a crazy experience I didn’t get in small town southeastern Kansas or that a lot of people don’t get in their community growing up.”