The Power of Numbers

• 250 alumni giving $40 each to Nursing Students Without Borders would enable six nursing students to travel with supplies to El Salvador to renovate a clinic.


• 100 donors giving $50 each provides a year’s worth of research support for a professor in the College of Arts & Sciences.


• 650 young alumni giving $30 each to the Curry School of Education would provide $6,500 directly to student programs in each of the school’s three departments.


• 100 donors giving $50 each would provide support for McIntire School of Commerce student activities, such as the AAF competition, the McIntire Investment Institute and the Dining with the Dean program.


• 200 alumni giving $50 each to the Science and Technology Policy Internship Program would enable an engineering student intern to experience technology policy in action for an entire summer in Richmond or Washington, D.C.

Healing Outreach In the School of Nursing, annual giving makes it possible for undergraduates to pursue summer research and outreach projects. The annual fund supported the research of undergraduate Elizabeth Sekinger (Nursing '02), one of the school’s first distinguished majors. Working under Associate Professor Ann Hamric, she examined the problem of moral distress among nursing students. National studies reveal that up to 15 percent of nurses have left their jobs due to moral distress, or the conflict between what feels morally right in patient care and constraints such as lack of time, power, knowledge, and confidence. The dilemma may be contributing to the critical shortage of nurses today. Sekinger, who now works in the Emergency Room of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, notes, "This gift enabled me to exclusively concentrate on my research last summer instead of waiting tables to pay rent. To conduct -- and possibly publish -- such research is rare for any nursing student. I am extremely grateful."