Cancer Survivor to Crimson President

4/4/2022

I grew up in newsrooms and control rooms. One of the earliest memories I have is watching my parents during a live newscast as breaking news came in. My mom, the anchor, would speak at the same time that my dad, the news director, would speak into her earpiece telling her the new developments.

The newsroom was like an ant colony when these things happened. One mention of a breaker, and all the reporters would instinctively go to their stations, ready for war.

It felt like a second home.

But believe it or not, when I got to Harvard, I was on the pre-med track. While at Ransom Everglades, I applied thinking I would be a doctor someday.

My interest in medicine resulted from a life-altering diagnosis at the start of my junior year at RE. A week before school started, I noticed a tiny bruise on my nose. One visit to my pediatrician and a blood count later, I was diagnosed with leukemia, a type of cancer.

I tried to attend school like normal, but chemo was grueling and left me depleted of energy and white blood cells to fight everyday battles: the common cold, going up stairs and even AP Calc. I quickly had to hit pause on my high school career to focus on my biggest battle yet, knowing I had a place back in my community.

When I returned to RE one year later, my cancer was in remission and I was welcomed back with open arms. My teachers showed me compassion, patience and grace. Ransom Everglades was my escape from hospital rooms and medications whose names I couldn’t even pronounce.

What had been stressful before became an adventure. Reading Hamlet in Dr. Bufkin’s British literature class transported me to Shakespeare’s Globe; playing “Bistro Fada” in Mr. Hamm’s class brought me to a Parisian concert by the Seine. The kindness and support of my peers and mentors energized me to finish my junior year, finish my chemo treatment, and start my eventual next step, Harvard.

I was determined to help give others the opportunity my doctors had given me: a second chance at life after a life-threatening disease.

That all changed when I saw the newsroom of The Harvard Crimson.

It was as though I was a little girl again. I could feel the life going on around me, reporters typing furiously to meet their deadlines; editors snipping away at stories and keeping an eye on all the latest developments. But most importantly, the newsroom was fun, filled with deep friendships that people had formed late night after late night.

I realized the second chance I had been given meant I had to follow my passions, even if they didn’t follow my high school plan to be a doctor.

I was joining The Crimson late. It was my sophomore spring, and most people joined their freshman fall. It meant I would likely not have a shot at a leadership position because I would have half the time in the organization that other people do.

But once again, life took a twist. Only three months into reporting, we were evacuated from school. The COVID-19 pandemic had arrived, and displaced us to every corner of the Earth.

Despite the monumental toll the pandemic had on the world, my friends, my family and me, it gave me an unexpected gift: the opportunity for three full years on The Crimson.

A year in lockdown came with two beats, dozens of remote production nights, 70 stories and hundreds of interviews with everyone from world leaders to my peers, who all defined the first chapter of my Crimson career.

Somehow, I got lucky enough to forge new friendships during those endless nights of writing. We were working as part of something bigger than ourselves, and were able to connect through tiny Zoom squares despite being scattered around the world.

The Crimson was hundreds of miles away from me, but it became my second home. When I finally got to experience it in person the following fall, my friend (and fellow Raider) Armando Brito ’17 pointed out that an extra year of reporting meant I could run for a leadership position.

I decided to run for president, through a five-week-long process called “shoot” that involved dozens of interviews, an essay, and speeches in front of my peers, who would decide the next leader of the paper.

I did not expect to win. Not only was my opponent one of the most brilliant journalists I knew, I was running mostly to put my ideas forth and to take a chance on myself. After walking out of my last interview, where I was seated before 40 deliberators who each posed a question, I went back to my dorm room to wait for the decision.

I wondered if I just made a complete fool out of myself or was just simply exhausted, but the next thing I knew my phone lit up. It was a call from then-president, Amanda, who told me she had some news.

Bracing myself for the worst, I waited.

“Congratulations!” Amanda said, “You’re the next president of The Harvard Crimson!”

– Raquel Coronell Uribe ’18, student at Harvard University

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RE founder Paul Ransom, circa 1903

News Detail

Cancer Survivor to Crimson President

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