Office of Public Relations — Newsroom
News Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jacque Montgomery, (303) 724-1520, Jacque.Montgomery@uchsc.edu
Gift to the UC Denver School of Nursing Aims to Improve Access to Care in Rural Colorado
$1.9 million will bring new nurses to rural towns
DENVER (Nov. 21, 2007) - Colorado's nursing shortage in rural parts of the state is getting some much needed attention thanks to a $1.9 million gift to the University of Colorado Denver School of Nursing. The just announced gift will create the Daniel and Janet Mordecai Rural Health Nursing Endowed Chair and four Rural Health Nursing Fellowships, an innovative nursing program with hopes of attracting more nurses to rural communities
In addition to the nursing shortage in hospitals across the state and in health care clinics in rural areas, the nursing profession also is experiencing a shortage of qualified faculty to educate nursing students. This gift will enable the UC Denver School of Nursing to create the Daniel and Janet Mordecai Chair in Rural Health Nursing to recruit a distinguished nurse scholar to substantially expand rural health nursing research and clinical care.
Part of this generous gift will be used to create four Rural Health Nursing Scholar Fellowships. The fellowships will be awarded to four graduate nursing students who focus their studies on rural health and agree to future employment in rural areas as educators. These rural health scholars will be required to have continual employment as nurse educators in schools in rural areas for a minimum of three years.
Janet Mordecai founded the Daniel and Janet Mordecai Foundation in 2003. The Foundation supports programs in the areas of health, culture and performing arts, community outreach and education. Janet's passion to support health care comes from her 35-year nursing career.
The University of Colorado Denver School of Nursing, as an integral part of its parent institution, is dedicated to the pursuit of higher learning grounded in the sciences, arts, and humanities. The School of Nursing shares the missions of the University of Colorado Denver: improving human health by educating health practitioners, delivering exemplary health care, and conducting research in the health sciences. The philosophy and mission of SON are focused on education, research, reflective practice, and service within nursing. For more information, visit the website at www.uchsc.edu/nursing.
The University of Colorado Denver is one of three universities in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver on the Downtown Campus and at Ninth & Colorado Blvd., and on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colo., University of Colorado Denver is Colorado's premier research university offering more than 100 degrees and programs in 12 schools and colleges and serving more than 28,000 students in Metro Denver and online. For more information, visit the website at www.ucdhsc.edu or the UC Denver Newsroom at www.uchsc.edu/news.
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