Jacquie Hirsch joined Sigma Delta Tau at SUNY Geneseo. She was a gymnast, diver and dancer. An Early Childhood Education major, she finished her coursework during the spring 2007 semester. Two months of student teaching that fall was all that was needed for Hirsch to be ready for a career as a teacher.
Her student teaching assignment was in Rochester. On September 28, 2007, she woke up feeling sick and her vision was blurry. Instead of heading to student teaching, she went to the campus health center. An eye specialist realized something was clearly amiss. Blood tests revealed an extremely elevated white blood cell level. Twelve hours after she woke up with blurry vision, she was at Roswell Park Cancer Institute waiting for her first round of chemotherapy. The diagnosis was Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. A search for a bone marrow donor began.
According to a press release:
A donor was found and on February 11, 2008, Jacquie was admitted into Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She spent three months at Hope Lodge after receiving a genetic altering bone marrow and stem cell transplant. Eleven days short of her discharge date, the leukemia returned. She was flown back to Buffalo to receive chemotherapy. Jacquie overcame infections, fevers, and pills to receive her second transplant in time. This new transplant resulted in a significant amount of Graft vs. Host Disease (GVHD), and her organs began shutting down from the radiation, chemotherapy, and medication. After spending weeks on a ventilator in a drug-induced coma, the organ failure, return of leukemia, and GVHD became too much for her body to handle.
Hirsch died with her family at her side on September 6, 2008, a little less than a year after her diagnosis. Her family and friends created a foundation, the Jacquie Hirsch For A.L.L. Foundation. Its purpose is to honor “the memory of Jacqueline E. Hirsch by improving and saving the lives of those affected with life threatening cancers.” It is committed to “increasing community awareness, funding research, hosting events, and providing patient and family support. We Believe that someday, we will have a world without cancer.”
Hirsch’s Sigma Delta Tau chapter still supports these efforts even though no one who is currently a collegian was in the chapter with her.
Today is Sigma Delta Tau’s Founders’ Day. On March 25, 1917, seven Cornell University students founded the organization, which was originally called Sigma Delta Phi. They changed the “Phi” to “Tau” once they discovered the name belonged to another Greek-letter organization.
Sigma Delta Tau’s founders are Dora Bloom (Turteltaub), Inez Dane Ross, Amy Apfel (Tishman), Regene Freund (Cohane), Marian Gerber (Greenberg), Lenore Blanche Rubinow, and Grace Srenco (Grossman).
A male involved in the beginnings of Sigma Delta Tau. Bloom asked Nathan Caleb House to write the ritual. “Brother Nat” is the only man to honored with the organization’s gold membership pin.
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