February 22, 2022

Miss Columbus State University 2022 Tori Svenson knows childhood cancer too well. At age 7, she was diagnosed with brain cancer, undergoing 52 weeks of intense chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation. 

“I have a lot of side effects due to the treatment because it’s meant for adults, so part of my platform is that I want to find better treatment so that children who undergo the same journey as me don’t have to have those side effects,” she said.

Svenson was crowned on Feb. 19, singing Adele’s “Easy on Me” for her talent—the culmination of years of middle school choir and high school theater. This June, Svenson will compete in the Miss Georgia competition, held annually in Columbus. 

As a sophomore nursing student, Svenson one day hopes to be a pediatric oncology nurse, working to make a difference for children with childhood cancer, just as her nurses once did.

“A big part of why I picked CSU is its nursing program,” she said. “It’s a highly ranked program and just provides a really well-rounded education.”

Svenson is also deeply connected to CSU, having grown up in a military family that’s lived across the United States, but kept finding its way back to Columbus. 

“I was actually the first Petite Miss CSU, so that’s what made me want to do Miss CSU in the first place,” she said. “But, the scholarship competitions also really changed who I was, giving me a lot of confidence and empowering me.”

When her older brother, Hunter, chose to attend Columbus State, she got to see what college life was really like.

“It’s such a welcoming university,” she said. “I think it helps that it’s a little bit smaller. I didn’t want to go somewhere where I was going to be a little fish in a big pond. I wanted to go somewhere where the professors would know me by name and people I would see everyday on campus would say hi to me.”

On campus, Svenson is involved with Phi Mu sorority. She hopes to use her platform to help fund childhood cancer research through the Rally Foundation and spread positivity on campus. 

Miss Columbus State University 2020-2021 Elise Higgins earned the Miss Columbus title at the joint scholarship competition.