Keeping Her Memory Alive: Honoring Tracey Teruya

On the sixth floor of Samuel Merritt University’s (SMU) new Oakland campus, a small garden overlooks the main plaza. From the building’s terrace, you can see downtown Oakland and just beyond that, the old SMU campus where Tracey Teruya once studied.

The garden represents a memorial for Tracey Teruya, a Master of Physical Therapy (MPT) student in SMU’s class of 1999, who passed away during her final clinical placement. 

Originally from Hawaii, Teruya was a Division I gymnast at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she completed her undergraduate degree. As an athlete, injuries and recovery were simply part of life and that experience shaped her path to physical therapy (PT). Choosing PT as a career was a natural extension of who she already was: someone who understood perseverance and the drive to return to activity.

She carried that same spirit of care beyond the classroom. Teruya was a fierce advocate for sea turtles, a cause close to home. To this day, not one of her classmates can see a sea turtle without thinking of her.

Teruya was the kind of positive and thoughtful classmate everyone needed. SMU alum Chris Jung, MPT, who studied alongside her, remembers her as "the one you reached out to when you did poorly on a test or had a bad day. She always had a smile to offer and usually a snack to share."

With an apartment close to campus, Teruya regularly opened her home to classmates as a place to decompress after an exam, share a meal, or get ready for a celebratory night out. It was the kind of effortless generosity that her cohort would carry with them long after graduation.

"Once we were all in the program, we were all in the same boat," Jung reflects. "Why or how we got there didn't matter as much as how we were all going to get through it together."

A Tree, A Plaque, and 28 Years

After her passing, upon returning from their second clinical rotation, Teruya’s class dedicated a Japanese maple tree housed in a concrete planter with the plaque dedicated to her memory. That plaque has stood at SMU since May 11, 1998—28 years ago today.

When Jung read that SMU was opening a new campus in Oakland, his first thought was the fate of Teruya’s tree. He reached out to Sharon Gorman, DPT Program Director, and Terry Nordstrom, former DPT Program Director and the faculty member who had facilitated the purchase of a replacement tree in 2009 after the original did not survive. Jung hoped that Teruya's planter and plaque could find a new home at the new campus.

Gorman acted quickly, locating the planter and plaque, and promising to find a way to carry over Teruya’s legacy at the new campus. A few months later, the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program obtained permission to dedicate the sixth floor terrace garden as Teruya's new memorial space. The original plaque was restored and remounted by SMU’s facilities team this past March.

"I don't know all the steps that Sharon went through to make this happen," Jung says, "but my classmates, Tracey's family, and I are grateful."

The garden is more than a quiet corner. It's a relaxing outdoor space for students, visible from Therapeutics Lab 635, one of the main DPT labs where students spend time learning and practicing. Teruya's memory and legacy is now woven into the daily life of students she never met.

"This new campus is a symbol of the future," Jung reflects. "At the same time, that growth only occurs after learning from the experiences of the students who came before and who are part of the foundation and tapestry of what SMU is today. I am thrilled for Tracey and her family that she continues to be memorialized at the school she brought so much light and hope to."

A Lasting Legacy

Teruya's impact extends beyond the garden. The Teruya family has established an endowed scholarship for DPT students, honoring her goal of becoming a physical therapist and supporting the next generation working toward that same dream. Jung hopes that students who receive the scholarship, and those who pass by her plaque each day, will come to know a little of who she was.

For those passing by her memorial garden each day, Jung has a simple reminder: "Tracey was a good student and studied hard, but her legacy is the relationships and connections she built. This is just as important in school as knowing anatomy and joint mobilization techniques."

Many in the MPT Class of 1999 are still practicing physical therapy. Some have moved into other careers. Some have retired after full and rewarding professional lives. As Jung reflects almost 30 years later, he “can only imagine what Tracey would have brought to the profession, to her patients, and to the world, and what all of us have missed.”