SON: Connections - Spring 2002

Headlines | Briefly | From the Deans Desk | Alumni News

Aljoya Professor in Aging Leading the Way

Margaret F. Dimond, PhD, RN, FAAN

Since being named the new Aljoya Endowed Professor in Healthy Aging last year, Margaret Dimond has led the effort to articulate a vision of health care for older adults. Working with a team of faculty, administrators and staff, she has successfully authored three major grant proposals to the John A. Hartford Foundation in New York. The Hartford grants and other funding sources that Dimond has located will help the School identify and work with graduate students and young faculty to develop their research skills in areas that will enhance the quality of life for older adults. They will also create a learning environment that will insure that undergraduates can provide the highest quality older adult care. In addition, they are providing funding to support five new geriatric nurse practitioner students through the course of their studies.

Dimond was assisted in this effort by Deborah Ward, former director of the de Tornyay Center on Healthy Aging; Basia Belza, associate professor of nursing and a nationally known researcher on issues related to aging; Julie Katz, Assistant Dean of Academic Services; and Margaret Anderson, former manager of the de Tornyay Center.

With these grants, says Dimond, "We now seek to strengthen the geriatric nursing components of our bachelors, masters, and doctoral programs and our community of geriatric nursing clinicians, as well as develop the capacity of our faculty to teach and advise geriatric nursing."

The Aljoya Professorship was endowed by Eli and Rebecca Almo, founders of the ERA Care organization of retirement communities. The Almos established the professorship in 1996 to honor members of their family who perished in the Holocaust and never experienced growing old.

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