Our Senior Class Gift Program continues to grow in its important support for the College. The 2006 Fall Graduating Class decided to support the Nursing Chair Fund dedicated to attracting and retaining nursing faculty. Their class represented 29 pledges totaling $2,450. The average gift from our seniors is an impressive $84. We are extremely grateful for this outstanding annual “Senior Class Gift” tradition established by our College of Nursing graduates!

The 2007 Nellie and Aladino Matteucci Faculty Fellowship Award recipient is Dr. Jean Giddens. This second year’s award helps Giddens shift The Neighborhood from the development phase to support and evaluation phase. Her second goal is to develop a faculty resource to enhance use by faculty. Congratulations, Dr. Giddens!

The NCLEX passing rate for our nursing graduates in 2006 was 95.23 percent. Congratulations to the graduates and to the College of Nursing faculty for the role you played in educating our students. It is cause for celebration!

The Board of Review of the Division of Accreditation of the American College of Nurse-Midwives granted our Nurse-Midwifery graduate program a full 10 year accreditation without recommendation.

Marie Mugavin has become the first ever PhD student to graduate from the UNM College of Nursing after successfully defending her dissertation in early January. Dr. Mugavin’s dissertation was a comparative study of women incarcerated in New Mexico for crimes of child abuse and child homicide. Mugavin interviewed close to 100 percent of these women to identify factors that may have lead to the crimes. Mugavin has joined the College faculty as an assistant professor.