“People keep telling me things I can do, and I keep believing them,” said Mayola Rowser. A USI assistant professor of nursing, she recently completed a Ph.D. in nursing at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice in 2005.

In 1993, she was a registered nurse when her husband, former USI basketball star DeJuan “Spider” Rowser, died of cancer. Their sons were ages 4 and 13. Rowser was determined to complete a bachelor’s degree, a goal she met at USI in 1995 with financial support from the Herschel Moore Scholarship for African American women and the Mitchell Nursing Scholarship. In 1999, she completed the USI master’s program in nursing.

Rowser joined the College of Nursing and Health Professions in 2001 to coordinate a nationally funded grant program. At that time, the dean encouraged her to consider doctoral studies. Indeed, that soon became her destiny. She was awarded a national fellowship for minority nurses in psychiatric and mental health nursing.

“You don’t forget,” Rowser said of the assistance she has received to go from one step to another. “I hope someday I can be in a position to make a difference for someone.”