NLN to Confer Awards on State Affiliated Constituent Leagues and Outstanding Programs in Geriatric Nursing Education

Washington, DC, September 16, 2015 – The National League for Nursing will celebrate the achievements of faculty, researchers, and nursing programs at the 2015 Education Summit later this month. The capacity-crowd gathering of nurse educators, deans, administrators, and executives of health care organizations offers an ideal opportunity to formally recognize recipients of the NLN’s awards and grants programs in an audience of peers and colleagues.

The Hearst Foundations Awards for Excellence in Geriatric Education and Constituent League Awards will be presented immediately after the annual CEO Summit Address on Thursday afternoon.

In noting the accomplishments of this year’s honorees, NLN president Dr. Marsha Howell Adams, professor and dean of the college of nursing at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, said: “These standout programs model excellence and therefore, serve as exemplars of the NLN mission: to prepare a strong and diverse nursing workforce to advance the health of the nation and the global community.”

Added NLN CEO Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN: “Their pedagogy, scholarship, and leadership reflect the NLN’s core values of caring, integrity, diversity, and excellence. Undergraduate and advanced degree nursing students alike owe them a debt of gratitude, as does the entire community of nurse educators and health care providers.”

NLN/Hearst Foundations Excellence in Geriatric Education Awards
As part of an intensive focus on teaching care of older adults, this award recognizes schools of nursing that use the web-based ACE.S (Advancing Care Excellence for Seniors) resources to demonstrate exceptional instruction and innovation in this key area of nursing education. The multi-year competitive awards program was established in 2012 with a $1.2 million grant from the Hearst Foundations; a dozen schools of nursing have been selected to date. Eligibility is based on participation in one of the Hearst-funded state workshops held in the past year to provide guidance to faculty in teaching geriatric care through ACE.S’ Essential Nursing Actions.

The 2015 Hearst Foundations Excellence in Geriatric Education Award winners are:

	Chester County Intermediate Unit – Practical Nursing Program, Chester, PA Kristine Krueger, MSN, RN; Nancy Haughton, MSN, RN
	Indiana University, Indianapolis Mary G. Mueller PhD, FNP B-C, AG PCNP
	Nevada State College, Henderson LaTricia Perry, MSN, RN, COI

2015 Constituent League Awards

Innovative Programing: Indiana League for Nursing (ILN)
Outstanding innovations in member programming have merited the Constituent League Award to ILN this year. Among them is ILN’s Dinner and Discussion, a series of events, hosted by volunteers statewide, based on four of the NLN’s strategic goals. Topics have covered: building a diverse nursing workforce, preparing nurses to become clinical adjuncts, preparing nurses to address global health issues, and generating enthusiasm for health policy and political activism.

An ILN Program Committee organizes the events in collaboration with the Membership, Scholarship, Public Relations, Continuing Education, and Silent Auction Committees. Nurses and nurse educators from around the state have participated, leading to rich, diverse conversations. Each event features a networking element during dinner, followed by an expert-moderated panel on a chosen topic. The interaction enhances the dissemination of innovative, evidence-based teaching strategies and nursing research agendas within the state.

Innovative Advocacy: Connecticut League for Nursing (CLN)
Two distinctive initiatives contributed to the selection of the Connecticut League for Nursing as winner of the Constituent League Award for Innovative Advocacy:

• Provision of leadership, staff, and financial resources to support the Connecticut Nursing Collaborative-Action Coalition (CNC-AC). The league also was a lead partner in helping to secure a (second round) two-year Robert Wood Johnson Grant to support two of the eight recommendations of the IOM’s Future of Nursing report. CLN led the Nursing Workforce and Education Data Initiatives by collaborating with the Department of Public Health and UConn School of Nursing to analyze and distribute the RN Workforce Supply and Education Reports.
• Active participation in the National Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers which was designated as the Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce. Such designation allows CLN and Connecticut to have a direct link with other centers around the country that are doing groundbreaking work related to nursing workforce, education, and leadership development.

More about the NLN awards programs may be found here .

Dedicated to excellence in nursing, the National League for Nursing is the premier organization for nurse faculty and leaders in nursing education. The NLN offers faculty development, networking opportunities, testing services, nursing research grants, and public policy initiatives to its more than 40,000 individual and more than 1,200 institutional members, comprising nursing education programs across the spectrum of higher education and health care organizations.