Before there were early morning classes and late-night study sessions, there were early mornings and late nights in Bennett, N.C., when Charlise Phillips ’26 was responsible for folks other than herself.

Specifically, the two people Charlise cared for answered to Mamaw and Papaw. She measured her grandparents’ insulin, organized medications and tended to the quiet, unglamorous work of keeping people well. It wasn’t something she was told to do. It was something she leaned into. Even then, she understood something a lot of people take years to figure out: care shows up in action.

Charlise carried that with her through high school to Guilford College, where she’ll graduate May 9 with degrees in Exercise Science and Health Science, and a minor in Psychology.

Looking back, she doesn’t see that time as an achievement. She frames it as preparation.

“I felt at home,” Charlise says, thinking back to the first time she stepped into an athletic training room at Eastern Randolph High School. “The chaos, the helpfulness – it just felt right.”

That instinct – to move toward the work – guided her college search. She toured larger universities first. They didn’t stick.

“I didn’t want to feel like a number,” she says.

Guilford was different. Smaller. Personal. She visited campus, looked around, and decided quickly.

“I loved it here.”

She arrived as a student-athlete, playing softball for two years. Like a lot of athletes, she knew injuries. Unlike most, she paid attention to what came after – the recovery, the frustration, the mental toll that doesn’t show up in a box score.

Eventually, a shoulder injury forced her to step away from the game she’d played for more than a decade. It could have been a breaking point.

Instead, it sharpened her focus.

“I felt like my whole identity was softball,” she says. “And I had to learn I was more than that.”

That realization is where the Psychology minor comes in – not as an add-on, but as a response. She wanted to understand what she had gone through and how to help others through it, too.

Meet more members of Guilford's Class of 2026

At Guilford, mentorship turned intention into direction. Faculty connections led to an internship with a performance and rehab center in nearby Asheboro, where she spent two years working alongside professionals who treated her like she belonged.

They reinforced something she already knew.

Injury and rehab care is where she belongs.

Ask Charlise what she gets out of the work, and she doesn’t hesitate.

“It’s the joy,” she says. “Watching someone walk again after surgery. Seeing them get back to what they love.”

From Bennett to Guilford to Asheboro, the setting changes. The instinct doesn’t.

She is, by her own admission, a nurturer — the kind of person who signs up for community service because she wants to. The kind who found leadership roles through organizations like FFA, which measures success in moments: a patient improving, a family relieved, an athlete smiling again.

That perspective gives her steadiness.

College can be disorienting. Charlise handled it while carrying a demanding academic load and building a professional identity that already feels lived-in.

She also built a life.

She met her fiancé, Landon Haynes ’26, at Guilford, two student-athletes whose early dates were less candlelight and more college budget: The Grill.

Then another date. Then another. Now, an engagement and a shared future.

After graduation, Charlise is headed to High Point University for graduate school in athletic training. She chose it for the same reasons she chose Guilford: small cohort, strong mentorship, meaningful connections.

“I want that one-on-one,” she says. “That’s where I grow.”

She’ll stay close to the region, close to the people who helped get her here. Landon is beginning his own path in the fire academy. Their lives are moving forward in parallel, built on the same grounded ambition.

Ask her what she’ll miss about Guilford, and the answer comes quickly.

“The people.”

That’s the tradeoff of a place like Guilford. It gives you roots. Then it asks you to take them somewhere else.

Charlise is ready.

Because the work she’s been doing all along – quiet, consistent, people-centered – travels.

Back in Bennett, it looked like caring for Mamaw and Papaw.

At Guilford, it became a calling.

Soon it becomes a career.