Few semesters have been as rewarding as spring 2022, as we look back on the many awards and accomplishments of our faculty and staff.
An award-winning spring
Angela Opsahl and Greg Carter
This past Spring, the IU School of Nursing Faculty Awards Committee announced that IU School of Nursing Bloomington’s (IUSON BL) Greg Carter and Angela Opsahl are among the recipients of this year’s IU Trustees Teaching Award. The IU Trustees Teaching Award is given each spring to IU faculty who have demonstrated excellence in teaching.
In addition to this prestigious award, Angela Opsahl achieved two career milestones by earning tenure and a well-deserved promotion to Associate Professor. Effective July 1st, Angela was also appointed to the role of IUSON BL Assistant Dean.
Greg Carter has been named IUSON’s Special Assistant to the Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Greg’s research portfolio and his advocacy work in our community—with their focus on improving access to quality care for marginalized populations—make him the ideal choice for this position.
Earlier this summer, the Indianapolis Business Journal recognized Greg for his important work in the field of DEI by naming him one of their 2022 Healthcare Heroes. Greg also received the 2022 Sequoia Award at IUSON’s semester-end Core Faculty & Staff Recognition Ceremony for his efforts in “increasing understanding of the uniqueness of individuals belonging to diverse populations within our student body and in the communities we serve.”
Roxie Barnes
Assistant Professor Roxie Barnes received not one, but two IUSON 2022 Faculty Recognition Awards. At IUSON’s semester-end Core Faculty & Staff Awards Ceremony, Roxie received:
- The Dean’s Award for Innovation, which recognizes a faculty member for their exemplary efforts to advance the school-wide adoption of innovation, and
- The Richard & Diane Billings Faculty Award for Scholarship in Teaching. This grant enables a faculty member to pursue scholarly interests related to teaching excellence & innovations.
In addition, Roxie presented virtually at the Society for Simulation in Healthcare’s international meeting in Los Angeles on the topics “Critical Thinking, Clinical Judgment and Reasoning in Simulation Development” and “Case-Based and Simulation-Based Learning in the Classroom to Enhance Clinical Judgment: A Comparison Study.”
Roxie also received a grant from Sigma Alpha Chapter to support her project, “Using Simulation to Assess Drug Calculations and Medication Administration Safety”.
Abby Berg
Clinical Assistant Professor Abby Berg is now the Coordinator of IUSON’s MSN Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Track. Abby is a certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner with experience in pediatric oncology and pediatric primary care.
Ashley Burelison
At the IUSON Core Faculty & Staff Awards Ceremony, Director of Student Services & Advising Ashley Burelison received the Mary Ellen Oberlander Spirit Award. This award recognizes a staff member who best displays a resolute spirit of perseverance, professionalism, and collaboration in conducting the business of IU School of Nursing.
Kim Decker
The Association of Community Health Nursing Educators (ACHNE) awarded Clinical Associate Professor Kim Decker its Outstanding Contributions to Community/Public Health Nursing Education Award. The award recognizes Kim for her work with the IUSON Aldrich Project, her service to the ACHNE Bylaws and Education Committee and the American Public Health Association/Public Health Nursing Education Committee, and her service on the committee to update the “Public Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice” document.
Speaking of the Aldrich Project, IU’s Center for Rural Engagement (CRE) has awarded Kim a grant to implement the “Second Step” emotional learning program in South Central Indiana’s middle schools and elementary schools. Kim is the principal investigator for this CRE-funded project. Funding will allow IUSON BL’s senior nursing students and other IUB undergraduate and graduate health science students to teach “Second Step” to 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th graders in Brown, Greene, Monroe, and Morgan Counties and at the John R. Wooden Middle School in Martinsville.
Kim has also been awarded a Global Classroom Fellowship grant that will enable her students to partner with students at the University of Stirling in Stirling, Scotland. Students from both countries will develop an understanding of the United Kingdom’s Universal Health Care Program and the United States’ Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and Private Health Insurance Programs and how payment for health services intersects with social determinants of health to impact health outcomes.
Sharon Gates
Congratulations to Clinical Assistant Professor Sharon Gates on winning the IUSON 2022 Daisy Award for the Bloomington campus. Nominated by our student nurses, the IUSON Daisy Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty honors faculty members who have an exceptional impact on their students and who are an inspirational influence on their future.
Marsha Hughes-Gay
Congratulations to Clinical Assistant Professor Marsha Hughes-Gay on receiving IUSON’s 2020 Faculty Core Values Award. This award recognizes a faculty member who best displays the core values of the Indiana University School of Nursing: Respect, Responsibility, Trust, and Dialogue. Bravo, Marsha!
Wendy Trueblood Miller
IUSON BL’s Associate Dean Wendy Trueblood Miller was awarded a grant from the Center for Enhancing Quality of Life in Chronic Illness to fund her study: “Use of the Mini-Delphi Method to Gather Stakeholder Input on a Novel Epilepsy Self-Management Intervention.” The Kinsey Institute’s Dr. Amanda Gesselman is the Co-Investigator for the study.
Their study will closely examine personal relationships as a success factor in the self-management of epilepsy, a chronic neurological disease affecting more than 3.5 million Americans. The study will feature a research advisory board of patients and professionals who will provide specific, structured feedback on a preliminary intervention that examines the impact of autonomy, competence, and personal relationships on epilepsy self-management.
Results from this preliminary study will be used to apply for a much larger NIH grant to conduct a full-scale examination of this CARE (Competency, Autonomy, and Relatedness in Epilepsy) intervention.
Wendy was also part of an international team of researchers from IU, Binghamton University, and Portugal’s Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência that explored the potential use of social media to detect behaviors that could precede sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).
Their findings were published in the journal Epilepsy & Behavior and show that the activity of epilepsy patients on social media increased before their sudden deaths – a change in digital behavior that could be used as an early warning sign to put preventive interventions for SUDEP into practice. Congratulations, Wendy and team, on your important, life-saving work!
John Simmons and Mary Hannah
Strategic Marketing & Communications Manager John Simmons was the recipient of the 2022 IUSON Dean’s Award for Partnerships, an award established in 2009 to recognize a staff member’s “exemplary efforts to develop and nurture internal and external partnerships that support collaborative educational and research excellence.”
John also teamed up with Writing & Editing Coordinator Mary Hannah in winning a 2022 Apex Award of Excellence in the “Newsletter (Electronic or Email)” category for The Nursing News. Now in its 34th year, the APEX (Awards for Publication Excellence) Competition is hosted by the national communications consulting firm, Communications Concepts, and recognizes the best in for-profit and nonprofit corporate communications. This year’s competition had over 1,200 entries.
Congratulations to all on these outstanding achievements!
In our next issue...
IUSON BL is producing a new video about our school, including a video tour of our facilities at the new Health Sciences Building. We are pulling out all the stops on this one, including guest appearances by IU President Pamela Whitten and IUSON Dean Robin Newhouse, and amazing tracking shots using our high-tech indoor and outdoor drones! You’ll be able to watch our video in the next issue of The Nursing News.