Thinking in the Future Tense: Student Vision of Global Health Includes Supporting the Generation of Students to Follow

Eva Kozura, who is originally from Taiwan, was a registered dietician working in a New York City hospital prior to discovering natural medicine. She realized that her ability to help her patients in the hospital's intensive care, cardiac and renal units was limited.

Her interest in natural medicine was sparked by conversations with friends who were seeing a naturopathic physician. Her mindset was transformed when she read Andrew Weil's book, Health and Healing.

Eva Kozura

"Philosophically, I was drawn to natural medicine," she explains.
The naturopathic doctor who was treating Kozura's friends was a Bastyr University alumna, and when Kozura's friends discovered she was looking to return to school, they encouraged her to look into Bastyr.

"Bastyr has the best training for what I want to do, which is practice holistic, preventative medicine. Bastyr has the best researchers, faculty and classmates to support me through my education," she says.

After graduation, Kozura not only plans to open a family practice, but she hopes to become an advocate for natural medicine – influencing policy and legislation in a way that improves health on an individual and a global scale.

When Eva leaves Bastyr University, she knows she'll be leaving with the best education she could obtain to enable her to reach her goals. However, she wants to do more than just take her degree and the knowledge she's gained. She wants to give back and leave a legacy that will allow future generations of students the opportunity to obtain the same education she's receiving, and be able to do so for free.

"I got the idea back in the summer of 2007. I was talking with a friend about how hard my dad had to work to put me through school and how I wished he didn't have to work so hard," says Kozura, ND and MSAOM candidate ('11).

As Kozura and her friend spoke, an idea took root and, as the dialogue progressed, blossomed. That conversation became the genesis for Fundraising for Resources and an Educational Endowment – more succinctly known
as Bastyr for F.R.E.E. – an effort to establish a student endowment that Kozura hopes will grow large enough that Bastyr won't need to rely on any tuition for operational costs.

A half dozen of Kozura's peers in the University's School of Naturopathic Medicine have joined her efforts. Those students are Michael Stanclift, Laura Stevens, Jenny Kaltunas, Brian Benedict, Melody Terlesky and Stephanie Pleiman. The group has received assistance from staff in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations as well as from other members of Bastyr University's administration.