Renowned Leader in Nursing to deliver YSN's 2005 Commencement Address
New Haven, CT — April 14, 2005
May L. Wykle, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA will deliver YSN's 2005 Commencement Address on Monday, May 23 at 12:30 p.m. at the Shubert Theater in New Haven, CT. The title of Dr. Wykle's talk will be "Global Health Care - Nurses Making a Difference."
Dr. Wykle is Dean and Florence Cellar Professor of Nursing at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. She is the recent past president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Dr.Wykle served on the advisory board for the Johnson & Johnson national "Campaign for Nursing's Future," which helped address the current nursing shortage with several initiatives aimed at recruiting new nurses and retaining current nurses. She has been a faculty member at Case Western Reserve University Faculty since 1969. Since 1988, she has served as Director of the University Center on Aging and Health. Dean Wykle has completed extensive research projects in areas such as geriatric mental health, family caregiving, minority caregivers, and caring for patients with dementia. She has initiated educational programs internationally in Europe, Africa and Asia. She has served as visiting professor at the University of Michigan, University of Texas at Houston, and the University of Zimbabwe in Africa, and as a visiting scholar at The University of Oklahoma and Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Recently, she completed an appointment as the first "Pope Eminent Scholar" at the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Human Development at Georgia Southwestern State University.
Dean Wykle graduated from the Martins Ferry Hospital School of Nursing in 1956. She earned her BSN in nursing, an MSN in psychiatric nursing, and a PhD in Education at The Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University. She is recognized nationally as an expert in the field of aging adults. Dean Wykle is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the Gerontological Society of America. She was a recipient of a Geriatric Mental Health Academic Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, and was the Director of a Robert Wood Johnson Teaching Nursing Home Project. In 1986, she participated in a study commissioned by Congress of the nation's nursing homes and was named to the White House Conference on Aging in 1993. She is a member of the National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Aging research review committees and the Geriatric/Gerontology Advisory Committee for the Veterans Administration. She was recently appointed by the National Institutes of Health to the Advisory Board of the Fogarty International Center. In April 2003, she was appointed by Governor Robert Taft to the Ohio Commission on Minority Health.
Dean Wykle has received numerous honors and awards including Case's 1989 John S. Diekhoff Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching, a Merit Award from the Cleveland Council of Black Nurses, and the 2000 Gerontological Nursing Research Award from the Gerontological Society of America. She was named "Outstanding Researcher in the State of Ohio" by the Ohio Research Council on Aging and the Ohio Network of Education Consultants in the Field of Aging. In 2001, she received the "Gerontological Nursing Research Award" from the Midwest Nursing Research Society and John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing and the Outstanding Undergraduate Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University. Most recently, she received the Ethelrine Shaw-Nickerson Award from the Ohio Nurses Association and the Golden Achievement Award in the Field of Health for 2002 from the Golden Age Centers of Cleveland, in August 2003, she was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Black Nurses Association. In May, 2004, Dean Wykle was the the recipient of the Frank and Dorothy Humel Hovorka Award recognizing a faculty member of Case whose exceptional achievements in teaching, research and scholarly service benefited the community, the nation, and the world. A recent book, Serving Minority Elders in the 21st Century earned the American Journal of Nursing's Book of the Year Award in 2000 and Successful Aging Through the Life Span was just released in November by Springer Publishing.
For more information on the 2005 Commencement ceremony please contact frank.grosso@yale.edu.
