Mary Scheerhorn, assistant professor of nursing at Hope College, has received the statewide "Faculty Advisor Award" from the Michigan Nursing Student Association (MNSA).
The award was presented during an awards banquet on Saturday, Feb. 7, during the MNSA's 2004 convention, held at the Amway Grand in Grand Rapids.
The award is presented to a faculty advisor who has shown distinguished support and service to nursing students. Criteria include providing motivation and generating enthusiasm for nursing student association involvement, exhibiting and teaching nursing professionalism, and encouraging students to continue their education and professional involvement after graduation.
Scheerhorn was nominated by the Hope Student Nurses' Association (HSNA).
"She really deserved it," said senior nursing major Jozette M. Dunlap of West Olive, who drafted the nomination. "She's been a great advocate for us as students."
Dunlap, in turn, was elected to a one-year term on the MNSA Board of Directors. She will serve as the nominations and elections chairperson, representing Hope at the state and national level.
Scheerhorn has been a member of the college's faculty since 1999. Nursing began at Hope in 1982 as a joint program with Calvin College that ran through 2003, and with the joint program phasing out Hope began its current, independent, program in 2001. The Hope program adds 36 sophomores each year, and will graduate its first class this spring.
In addition to her teaching and work with the student organization, Scheerhorn is the 2003 faculty counselor for the college's chapter of the Sigma Theta Tau International nursing honorary society.In 2000, she received a Hope College Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Development Grant to develop a new nursing leadership/management course.
Her community involvement includes serving as a sexual assault nurse examiner for Ottawa County and as an Emergency Department RN with Holland Community Hospital, where she was on the staff for more than two decades before joining the Hope faculty. She spoke about emergency nursing during one of the MNSA convention's breakout sessions.
Among other activities, she is on the Board of Directors for Hospice of Holland, and a volunteer with the Victim Services Unit of Holland and the Lakeshore SAFE Kids Coalition.
Scheerhorn completed a diploma at Bronson Methodist School of Nursing in 1972, a BSN at Grand Valley State University in 1986 and an MSN at Andrews University in 1993.
A total of six Hope nursing majors and HSNA members attended the convention, which ran Friday-Sunday, Feb. 6-8: Dunlap, senior Megan Keenan of Ann Arbor, senior Emily Mark of Mount Pleasant, senior Craig Preston of Holland, senior Cindy Reichert of Corunna and sophomore Dan Sherry of Holland. Dunlap, who is the Hope organization's communications editor, and Reichert, who is the HSNA president, attended the event as delegates.