The University of Tennessee’s Volunteer Creed offers a challenge and a promise: “One that beareth a torch shadoweth oneself to give light to others.”
Philanthropy is the living expression of that torch.
When donors give, they portray the Volunteer spirit—using their generosity to help others shine, often without seeking to spotlight themselves. Those contributions provide pathways for students, uplift communities, and ignite innovation.
In the College of Nursing, shining examples abound:
When longtime faculty member Mary Gunther (BSN ’91, MSN ’92, PhD ’01) passed away in 2021, she left her entire estate to fund much-needed scholarships for PhD nursing students.
Leading nurse scientist Maureen Groër (MSN ’80) established a $250,000 endowment to provide long-lasting support for the college’s research program.
And alumna Amy Neil (BSN ’00; MSN ’07) channeled her grief from losing her newborn son into funding part of the college’s Precious Prints Project.
Diannah Eagle, senior director of advancement, said the college has about 100 fully endowed funds, which together yield about $450,000 a year. The college raises about $3 million in new support annually. In the past few years, the college has also raised nearly $9 million to support its building campaign, with a goal of raising $12.5 million.
With the demand for nurses outpacing the supply, the college is always looking for ways to provide student support and grow its programs.
Philanthropic investments like those from Gunther, Groër, and Neil—and many other named and unnamed individuals, organizations, and community partners—are critical to the college’s mission and exemplify the Volunteer Creed.
“Donors’ contributions support student scholarships, faculty work, travel, research—it helps us recruit and retain the best and brightest nursing faculty,” Dean Victoria Niederhauser said.
Scholarships can free students to focus on their studies without holding side jobs and allows them to graduate with less debt. Donated funds also help offset the cost of students’ international service-learning trips and conference travel.
And with the uncertainty of federal funding, the college may have to rely more on donors “to pick up the funding for very important initiatives that are no longer being financially supported by external organizations,” Niederhauser said.
Partners Invest in Future Workforce
The US Health Resources and Services Administration estimates that the nation will see a shortage of 63,720 full-time RNs by 2030.
The College of Nursing—now ranked 19th among public universities nationwide by U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges—is trying to help fill the gap. With roughly 1,350 students, enrollment is at an all-time high.
“My anticipation is in the next couple of years, we will reach close to 1,500 students,” Niederhauser said.
That’s especially good news for area hospitals. Niederhauser said 60 to 70 percent of UT nursing graduates stay in Tennessee; of those, 60 percent stay in Knoxville.
Two programs established in partnership with UT Medical Center—the Accelerated BSN Scholars and the BSN Scholars Program—are boosting the college’s enrollment while creating a pipeline of nurses for UTMC.
Accelerated BSN Scholars is part of the 12-month nursing education program for students with non-nursing bachelor’s degrees. A $1 million endowment funded by UTMC, supplemented with funds provided by UT in addition to those allocated by the college, provides Accelerated BSN Scholars with a $12,776 scholarship. They agree to work at UTMC for three years after graduating, benefiting the entire region.
The BSN Scholars Program, which launched in fall 2023, graduated its first class of 40 nurses in December 2024. The newest class has 108 students.
As part of the program, fully funded by UTMC, BSN Scholars receive last-dollar tuition assistance in exchange for a three-year work commitment following graduation. They learn in a state-of-the-art facility at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm, with learning labs, simulated hospital suites, and technology-enhanced classrooms, and they complete their clinical rotations at UTMC. By graduation they are already familiar with the medical center’s equipment, systems, and culture, helping to ensure a seamless transition into their nursing career.
In recognition of the generous support of these programs, a student commons area in the new building will bear UTMC’s name.
The college’s long-standing partnership with UTMC got a boost this year when Niederhauser was named associate senior vice president for nursing academic-practice partnerships at UTMC, and Sandy Leake, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at UTMC, was named associate dean for academic-practice partnerships at the college.
Through these unpaid appointments, Niederhauser and Leake confer about the hospital’s nursing needs and how the college can help.
“It recognizes that both of us are committed to each other’s organization,” Niederhauser said. “We are willing to invest our time to develop a relationship that helps us understand what’s going on in each other’s world.”
To better prepare graduates to care for children and their families, an innovative partnership between the college, a philanthropic donor, and East Tennessee Children’s Hospital began this summer. The year-long program provides student scholarships and enhanced pediatric educational opportunities for rising senior BSN students.
“We are moving from we and them to an integrated model,” Niederhauser said. “The health care institutions invest and become partners in creating a better prepared nursing workforce.
Scholarships Support Students
“Thanks to generous donors, the college was able to award nearly $525,000 in scholarships this past year, increasing by over $250,000 in a year’s time,” Niederhauser said.
Despite that growth, fewer than half of all nursing students who apply for scholarships receive funds. Fees for undergraduate and graduate programs vary widely, ranging from $24,000 to $100,000. The average scholarship award for undergraduates is only about $2,500 per student.
Among the newest support for scholarships are two significant gifts:
The Boyd Foundation, headed by UT System President Randy Boyd, donated $1 million, half of which was added to the Susan L. Moeller Memorial Scholarship Endowment. The Moeller endowment, created in 1978, honors the memory of a nursing student who was the college roommate of Boyd’s wife, Jenny. Moeller died in a car wreck while she was still a student. (The other half supports the building fund.)
A new $1 million gift from the private Bedford Falls Foundation, started by Carlyle Group co-founder William Conway Jr. and his late wife, Joanne, established the Joanne and William Conway Nursing Scholarship, which will provide scholarships averaging $8,750 per year to 60 BSN students over three years. It also created the Joanne Barkett Conway Angel’s Wings Emergency Fund. Emergency awards help students through difficult situations such as traveling home to attend a funeral or escaping a domestic violence situation.
For students like senior Jiro Greenberg-Oster of Memphis, who wants to be a psychiatric nurse, scholarships help tremendously.
“Thanks to donors’ generosity, I can prioritize my time focusing on my studies. Without the scholarships, I would have to set school aside to work longer hours,” he said. “The donations exponentially grow by guaranteeing a nursing education to people like me who can then touch many lives and contribute to making the world a better and healthier place.”
Contribution Bolsters PhD Program
The Dr. Mary Gunther Scholarship for PhD Students, given for the first time this past year, provides $10,000 one-year awards for four PhD students annually.
Sandra Thomas, PhD program chair, said enrollment in nursing PhD programs has declined nationwide since Doctor of Nursing Practice programs launched about 25 years ago. PhD programs prepare nurses for careers conducting research in academia and other organizations; DNP programs prepare nurses for advanced practice clinical roles and administrative leadership roles.
Dwindling enrollments in PhD programs make it more difficult for UT and other universities to fill faculty positions.
“Applicants for BSN and graduate nursing programs are being turned away because of the critical faculty shortage, which exacerbates our national nursing shortage,” Thomas said. “The American Association of Colleges of Nursing in October 2024 reported that there were almost 2,000 faculty vacancies. With nearly half of the current PhD faculty expected to retire within the next two years, the shortage is rapidly worsening.”
UT’s PhD program—a three-year distance-based education program—currently has 27 students. It enrolls about 10 new students each year, holding steady at about 30 students since its inception in 1989.
“If we had more scholarships for our PhD students, I think we’d be able to recruit more students,” Niederhauser said.
Thomas said some private universities, including Emory and Vanderbilt, entice PhD students with full-ride scholarships.
“We try to make sure all PhD students get some kind of financial assistance, but full tuition waivers and stipends generally aren’t available,” Thomas said, adding that more gifts like Gunther’s could help the college provide a greater level of financial support.
Gifts Help Bridge Research Funding Gaps
UT, like other large universities, is a research workhorse.
“Research does not make money. Discovery is expensive. It is a service,” Associate Dean of Research Tami Wyatt said.
Niederhauser said the college is building research expertise in areas like heart disease prevention, caring for caregivers, end-of-life support, chronic disease management, and the link between the microbiome (that is, gut health) and health outcomes.
The college’s federal funding for research has grown exponentially. Almost 87 percent of the more than $7 million in external funding the college received in fiscal year 2025 came from the US Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and other agencies that are now facing spending cuts and being asked to shift priorities.
With college researchers across the country in the same predicament, competition for private dollars will increase.
Only about a fourth of the college’s 100-plus endowments are earmarked for faculty stipends, research endeavors, or recruitment and retention, Eagle said.
One of those is the Allison and Patrick Harrison Nursing Innovation Award, which provides selected faculty with one-time awards for innovative teaching or research. The annual award is now about $2,600 and will increase each year as the endowment grows. Faculty often use the money to pay for research assistants, travel to present research findings, and pilot studies that can lead to larger grant funding.
Donors Help Fund New Building
The college’s new $85 million 117,000-square-foot building holds many tangible reminders that philanthropic investments are vital to the college’s people, programs, and facilities.
The College of Nursing extended its partnership with the University of Tennessee Medical Center through the sponsorship of the new UT Medical Nursing Building.
Half of the Boyd Foundation’s recent $1 million gift went to support the building fund. In acknowledgment, the building’s 250-seat lecture theater will be named in memory of Jenny Boyd’s college roommate, Susan Moeller.
College of Nursing Advisory Board Chair Lisa Reed (BSN ’86) and her husband, Greg Reed (BA ’85, JD ’88), recently established the Lisa Edwards Reed Nursing Scholarship Endowment. The building’s home health care suite—a simulated apartment where nursing students practice home health care skills—will be named in their honor. In addition to the Reeds’ building gift, they also created the Lisa and Greg Reed Endowed Dean’s Chair. Earnings from the endowment will support top college priorities for generations to come.
The state-of-the-art Groër Family VolBiome Lab recognizes Groër’s support of the college’s research program.
The building also will have enhanced spaces for simulated learning. Simulation allows students to use manikins and other technology to practice skills and deliver nursing care. Furthermore, the new spaces provide a venue for faculty to conduct research on topics like medication error prevention and test products such as a self-care support robot for dementia patients or new phone and computer applications to improve health.
Simulated learning is supported by proceeds from the college’s annual NightinGala fundraiser as well as the generosity of donors.
For instance, retired faculty member Mary Lynn Brown (BSN ’71), created an endowment that supports faculty members in attaining national certification as a health care simulation educator.
Also, Wyatt said, college faculty are engaged in an unprecedented level of interdisciplinary research. By collaborating with experts from other fields, “you approach the same problems, but in a different way,” she said.
Several college faculty members are involved in interdisciplinary research at the new Center for Precision Health, a 15,000-square-foot facility on the third floor of UTMC’s Orthopaedic Institute at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm. Precision health individualizes treatment by considering a patient’s genetics, family history, personal history, environment, and other social determinants of health.
Between the new nursing building and the Center for Precision Health, nursing faculty may have the best research facilities they’ve ever experienced.
“For the past 10 years, we have not had lab space of any sort—no space to conduct assessment, do lab benchwork, conduct interviews,” Wyatt said. “Now we have that space and capability.”
Gifts Help College Aid Community
UT’s Center for Nursing Practice, whose programs include the Vine School Health Center and the Precious Prints Project, was created in 2015 with a generous donation from the late Poppy Buchanan, a public health nurse, and her husband, the late physician Richard Buchanan.
The Vine School Health Center has been providing health care services to children and families across Knox County for 30 years. Supported by patient fees, philanthropic donations, and private, state, and federal grants, the center sees about 7,000 patients each year.
Precious Prints, which began in 2012, provides families who have lost a child with a silver charm bearing the fingerprint of their child. Active in 10 area partner hospitals, the program has given away more than 2,400 pendants. Donations help purchase print kits, train nursing staff to use them, and support student engagement.
At UTMC, Precious Prints is sponsored by Neil and her family through the Luke Hudson Neil Foundation, a nonprofit organization created by Neil and her sister Jennifer Hong (BSN ’05) to honor Neil’s late son.
Neil said she wanted to support Precious Prints because of the comfort she’s received from her charm with Luke’s fingerprint.
“I wear it every day,” she said. “It’s a piece of Luke that I’m able to have with me.”
Another gift from Poppy Buchanan helped fund Helping Babies Breathe simulation equipment used to train students in neonatal resuscitation at UT and in Kenya, where College of Nursing students travel for a global studies program.
Bearing the Torch, Giving Light
From grateful alumni who want to give back to foundations that provide big-dollar support, philanthropic funding is critical to the college’s current and future success.
“We are so thankful for our donors,” Niederhauser said. “All donations, small and large, make a difference—in the spirit of our Volunteer Creed, the generosity of donors provides a torch that will help guide the college into its future. These funds give us the added ability to support our students, advance our research mission, and sustain programs that both train our students and provide important health services for the community.”
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CONTACT:
Kara Clark Cardwell ([email protected], 865-974-9498)