The College of Nursing inducted five inaugural
alumnae into its Hall of Fame on Friday, June 1, 2007 at a
formal ceremony and banquet. This highest honor of the College,
established in 2006, identifies distinguished graduates and
their extraordinary contributions to the nursing profession.
The 2007 inductees include:
Nancy Dickenson-Hazard, R.N., M.S.N.,
C.N.P., F.A.A.N.
B.S.N. 1968
Chief Executive Officer, Sigma Theta Tau International
Indianapolis, Indiana
Since 1993, Nancy Dickenson-Hazard has served
as chief executive officer of Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI),
the international nursing honorary society. With a current
budget of $15 million, she coordinates both the United States
and international chapters of the society and the Foundation of
Sigma Theta Tau.
The scope and impact of her leadership in this
role is immense and far-reaching. Among the accomplishments of
STTI under Dickenson-Hazard's leadership: membership growth to
400,000 members in 114 countries and operationalization of the
only online library of nursing research, housing more than
30,000 research studies and abstracts.
Dickenson-Hazard values her undergraduate
nursing degree from UK. “I think first and foremost the College
taught me to think. Very little happens in health care and with
patients without that being filtered first through nursing.
Treatments, medications, procedures, systems, processes…all
happen because nurses have the knowledge and the ability to
think through the complexity of health care puzzles and then
make them relevant to people. Nursing really is the central
organizing and focal point for health care and nurses are the
front line for patient care.”
Sue Thomas Hegyvary, R.N., Ph.D., F.A.A.N.
B.S.N. 1965
Dean Emerita, University of Washington School of Nursing
Seattle, Washington
Sue Hegyvary grew up in rural Kentucky in a
culture that didn’t especially value education. Very few
students from her high school went to college. However, in 1965
she completed her B.S.N. at UK.
“We didn’t know it then, but we all owe a huge
debt of gratitude to Marcia Dake (first dean of the College) for
establishing that tradition that we’re not here for things and
technology. We’re for people, and whether that’s down the street
or across the world, that’s the essence of the profession,” said
Hegyvary.
Hegyvary is professor and dean emeritus at the
University of Washington School of Nursing, where she teaches
international health, health care systems, and organizational
effectiveness.
Since 1999, Hegyvary has served as editor of
the Journal of Nursing Scholarship (JNS), an official
publication of Sigma Theta Tau International. The journal has
evolved significantly under her direction and reflects her
influence, including its global perspective, focus on
excellence, a requirement of rigorous study designs and
consideration of larger societal contexts in which analytical
findings are interpreted.
Alice Gertrude Herman, R.N., Ph.D., C.N.M.
M.S.N. 1972
Nursing pioneer in rural and frontier areas of America
Harrodsburg, Kentucky
After completing her basic nurses training,
Alice Herman happened upon a book about nurses on horseback and
her life was changed forever. She trained to be a midwife and
spent the next years in the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS)
working with founder Mary Breckinridge (begun in 1925 in eastern
Kentucky).
While working in Alaska, her favored mode of
transportation to a delivering mother was a 23-dog sled team and
by horseback in eastern Kentucky. She delivered more than 1,000
babies, some in dreadful circumstances, and lost only one. None
of the mothers she attended died in childbirth. Often, there was
nothing but newspaper to wrap the newborn in. Once, she took the
saddle blanket from her horse and fashioned a makeshift
nightgown for a baby who had no other clothing. Herman says she
was taught, “You are a nurse. When there is not a way, make
one.”
After receiving her M.S.N. here at UK in 1972,
she traveled to London for her doctorate. She never really
settled anywhere – she is a self-proclaimed wanderer, believing
the world has many wonders and needs and that staying in one
place would not maximize the benefit she could bring. She’d love
to go back to the FNS in the early years. “The work was hard,
the hours were long, the pay was pathetic, but what I gained in
job satisfaction was worth all that…plus the fact I had an
opportunity to work with and for Mary Breckinridge (founder of
the FNS in 1925 in eastern Kentucky).”
Cynda Hylton Rushton, R.N., Ph.D., F.A.A.N.
B.S.N. 1978
Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
Program Director, Harriet Lane Compassionate Care Program
Baltimore, Maryland
Since 2004, Cynda Rushton has been an
associate professor of nursing with the School of Nursing at
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She has a joint
appointment in pediatrics with the university’s School of
Medicine. She is a nationally recognized expert in bioethics and
palliative care. In 2001 she received the American Association
of Critical-Care Nurses Pioneering Spirit Award for her work in
advancing palliative care across the life-span. She was
appointed by the governor of Maryland to chair the State Council
on Quality Care at the End-of-Life in 2002. In 2005 she was
appointed to serve on the Institute of Medicine Committee on
Organ Donation and the Advisory Committee to the National
Children Study, the largest longitudinal study of children’s
health in the United States.
“Clearly, every journey begins with a first
step. And this (UK) was the beginning of my journey in nursing.
Certainly the faculty, as well as the patients and families
themselves have really been my greatest teachers. They have
taught me about the strength and the frailty of the human body.
They taught me about the resilience of the spirit and
circumstances that are tragic and often difficult to even
imagine. They taught me about the hope and faith that many of
our patients and their families are able to garner in very, very
difficult times.”
Elizabeth (Betsy) Elder Weiner, R.N.,
B.C., Ph.D., F.A.A.N.
B.S.N. 1975
Senior Associate Dean for Educational Informatics and Professor
of Informatics
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
Nashville, Tennessee
Elizabeth “Betsy” Weiner has built a very
successful research program, with more than $2 million in funded
research and training grants. Her research focuses on curriculum
development and evaluation for nurses in emergency management
and response; evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of
online learning by volunteer nurses for emergency response; and
curriculum and development of informatics competencies for
advanced practice nurses. She is considered a pioneer in
informatics and technology as it is applied to nursing. She has
shared her expertise in bioterrorism, emergency preparedness,
and disaster response in Kentucky as well as internationally.
There was never any question as to where she’d
go to school. It would be the University of Kentucky. Once she
settled on a nursing major, it was because “nursing had some
personal connection. It was my calling and I knew that’s what I
wanted to do.”
*****
Marcia Dake, R.N., Ed.D., the College’s first
dean, commented on the beginnings of the College in 1960: “It
was 49 years ago that I drove from western New York to
Lexington, Kentucky with a U-Haul trailer behind my Pontiac. I
became the seventh medical center staff member. Our offices were
in the farm house. We did our business for a year or
year-and-a-half on the stairway.”
“I am one of the first 100 nurses in this
country who are known to have a doctoral degree. I say that not
to compliment myself but to take you back to where nursing was
at that stage in our history. We did not have doctoral programs
in nursing. We did not have doctorally prepared nurses to teach
in such programs. In those early years, nursing at this
institution was at the undergraduate level. Medicine and
dentistry were at the graduate level. We tried, we could not, at
that time, develop the interdisciplinary programs to bring about
the cohesion that we really wanted. We couldn’t mesh
undergraduate with graduate. Today there is the possibility for
that interdisciplinary team that we used to talk about. We now
can do that because we have nurses prepared at the doctoral
level and I congratulate those who have followed me.”
Carolyn Williams, R.N., Ph.D., F.A.A.N.,
immediate past dean of the College, reminded those in
attendance, “In our contemporary world there is almost an
insatiable desire to quantify things. In education, this is
evident in a number of ways, including the recent efforts to
rank and to rate schools and programs. We all know what really
matters is whether the graduates are able to do what needs to be
done, to do it well, and to provide leadership in their chosen
field. Our honorees are symbolic of the best of our community of
graduates and by celebrating them, we are celebrating all of our
graduates.”
Jane Marie Kirschling, R.N., D.N.S., current
dean, thanked the deans who served before her building a
foundation for a College that is growing and prospering. “The
impact of your leadership and vision for the College of Nursing
is clearly evidenced in the College’s graduates, from our
undergraduate and graduate programs.”
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