{"id":3219,"date":"2020-05-13T06:34:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T10:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=3219"},"modified":"2020-05-11T14:46:48","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T18:46:48","slug":"class-of-2020-detroit-mercy-showed-me-mercy-in-my-time-of-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2020\/05\/13\/class-of-2020-detroit-mercy-showed-me-mercy-in-my-time-of-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2020: ‘Detroit Mercy showed me mercy in my time of need’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NickEvery college graduate has obstacles they have to overcome along the way; Nick Summerlee\u2019s list just happens to be longer than most.<\/span><\/p>\n

Summerlee was a high school dropout. He fought in the Iraq War and, as a result, battled mental illness. But through it all, Summerlee kept on fighting, believing in himself and earned a bachelor of science in Biology from University of Detroit Mercy this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe only reason I finished this degree was because of the support from the people at Detroit Mercy,\u201d Summerlee said. \u201cI\u2019m 99.9% sure that if I went to any other university I don\u2019t think I would have completed my degree and be where I\u2019m at right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Summerlee hopes to go to medical school and become a psychiatrist, something that didn\u2019t seem very likely back in 2002 when he dropped out of high school to join the Army. He was in field artillery during the Iraq War, while his senior class was graduating in 2003.<\/span><\/p>\n

He lived in Japan for 10 years after he got out of the service and said he returned to the United States because he wanted to pursue a career in medicine.<\/span><\/p>\n

He enrolled at Detroit Mercy after earning an associate\u2019s degree at a community college. Summerlee said from his first advising appointment with Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Elizabeth Roberts-Kirchhoff he could tell Detroit Mercy was a special place.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe was very thorough and in-depth, and cared about me graduating just from the first encounter with me,\u201d Summerlee said. \u201cIt was completely different than any other university I attempted to attend.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Summerlee instantly hit it off with professors and was confident he made the right choice by enrolling at Detroit Mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy first classes there were fantastic,\u201d Summerlee said. \u201cThe professors were very knowledgeable and they broke things down in a way that made it very easy to learn whether you were a novice or an expert in the sciences. Everyone could gain something from the class.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if you ever did have problems, you could go to any of these professor\u2019s offices and sit down with them. They would kind of BS with you for five minutes and have a good conversation, get to know you. They didn\u2019t just treat you like a number and a grade; they treated you like a human being. That was something I always appreciated from everybody at Detroit Mercy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Summerlee\u2019s relationships with his professors were key when he started to go through a deep depression and was in and out of the hospital.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI went through the worst depression of my life, it was terrible,\u201d Summerlee said. \u201cIt got to the point where I was probably going to end my life, to be honest. I was seeking psychiatric treatment at the VA and unfortunately, through a misdiagnosis, they put me on a medication I shouldn\u2019t have been on and it really had some terrible side effects.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe professors at Detroit Mercy, they just worked with me and were there. With all the doctor appointments I had to go to, I was in the hospital all the time, while I was trying to complete my undergrad.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry Mara Livezey said Summerlee was off to a great start in her class when she began to notice a change so reached out to him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNick was really a light in the classroom and never failed to laugh at the lame jokes and cat memes I incorporated into my classroom,\u201d Livezey said. \u201cI could quickly tell Nick was an excellent student, but about halfway through the semester, Nick started missing class and assignments. It was really at this time that we started chatting more outside of class. This is when he opened up about his history as a veteran and with his mental health issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe described that his mental health had taken a turn for the worse, so I did everything within my power to encourage him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Summerlee underwent a new treatment and said it completely changed everything for him. He was able to complete his degree and he credits Detroit Mercy for renewing his faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nick\u201cI realized the world is such an imperfect place with so much suffering, but only people willing to do good can alleviate that suffering, and they must have a belief in a higher power to hold them accountable,\u201d Summerlee said. \u201cI prayed to God that if he alleviated my suffering I would dedicate my life to doing good for humanity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Summerlee is currently doing all he can to help during the COVID-19 crisis through his own nonprofit called Project Mercy Masks, where he uses a 3D printer to make masks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI called it Project Mercy Masks because the professors at Detroit Mercy showed me mercy in my time of need,\u201d Summerlee said. \u201cI\u2019m just in so much debt to those professors from Detroit Mercy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Summerlee taught himself to 3D print the masks despite not having any experience with 3D printing before the coronavirus pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was completely clueless about 3D printers before all this,\u201d Summerlee said. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know what companies made them. The printers I bought are made here in the United States. The company taught me a bunch of stuff and the rest I learned from YouTube and reading forums. Everything else has been prior knowledge. To do the chemical treatments I\u2019m doing to the masks I use my organic chemistry knowledge from Detroit Mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am currently printing the Montana Mask, which is the most popular 3D printed mask right now. It was developed by physicians and it is approved for use by medical staff in over five states.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Summerlee intends to print masks as long as there is a need and is in the process of setting up a web site to sell the masks. He\u2019s using all the proceeds from sales to print more masks and donate them to first responders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s weird going from having pretty much nothing to being where I\u2019m at right now, but a lot of it just had to do with pushing myself to never be in the same place, trying to improve myself constantly and never staying stagnant,\u201d Summerlee said. \u201cGoing from a high school dropout who joined the Army because he had very little going for himself at the time to where I am now, it\u2019s a real eye opener of what somebody can accomplish.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014 By Dave Pemberton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every college graduate has obstacles they have to overcome along the way; Nick Summerlee\u2019s list just happens to be longer than most. Summerlee was a high school dropout. He fought in the Iraq War and, as a result, battled mental illness. But through it all, Summerlee kept on fighting, believing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":3220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9,29,24],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2020\/05\/summerleefloat1.jpg?fit=400%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-PV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3221,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219\/revisions\/3221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}