Two Regional Nursing Organizations Recognize Professors in Several Categories

Contact: Renata Nyul at 617-373-7424

(3-19-07) BOSTON, Mass. – Four Northeastern University nursing professors are being honored with awards by two organizations, the Massachusetts Association of Colleges of Nursing (MACN) and the Eastern Nursing Research Society (ENRS). Dr. Angela Nannini, Dr. Natalie McClain and Ms. Mary Mayville are receiving MACN’s Innovative Teaching Award, the Early Career Award for Full-time Faculty and the Early Career Award for Part-time Faculty, respectively. The MACN gives out one award in each of the three categories and in 2007 all three went to Northeastern University. Dr. Teri Aronowitz is being honored with ENRS’ annual Distinguished Contributions in Nursing Research Award, in the Junior Investigator category. ENRS honors one nurse researcher in two categories every year.

“These awards honor distinctive qualities of our faculty,” says Nancy Hoffart, Dean of the Bouvé College of Health Sciences School of Nursing at Northeastern University. “They draw from their strong clinical backgrounds to guide students as they prepare for the challenges and rewards of today’s practice environment. Each of them helps students learn how to access contemporary research and use it when providing nursing care. And each of them has a teaching style that conveys respect and collegiality toward students.”

The Massachusetts Association of Colleges of Nursing (MACN) created the Academic Innovative Teaching Award to recognize a nurse educator who brings new ideas to the classroom. By demonstrating an innovative approach to educating future nurses and encourages more nurses to consider becoming nurse educators. The Academic Nursing Early Career Award recognizes nurses with baccalaureate and higher-level degrees early in their careers, who have demonstrated excellence in their part-time and full-time academic teaching role and functions.

Eastern Nursing Research Society (ENRS) is a forum for nurse researchers to promote and support nursing research in the northeastern region of the United States. The Distinguished Contributions to Nursing Research Award recognizes nurses who have sustained a record of outstanding contributions to nursing research on the doctorate and post-doctorate level. Contributions include published records of research.

Angela Nannini, RN, PhD, FNP – MACN Innovative Teaching Award
Nannini joined the Northeastern nursing faculty in 2003 and teaches primarily graduate-level courses. Her most innovative teaching strategy is the “Health Policy Pathfinder,” a student-created guided tour exploring controversial health policy issues to bring together the knowledge and skills necessary for policy analysis, formulation and advocacy. The strategy applies political science theory related to interest group politics and policy solutions.

Natalie McClain, RN, PhD – MACN Early Career Award for Full-time Faculty
McClain has been with Northeastern University for three years as a full-time member of the nursing faculty. She teaches pediatric nursing in the undergraduate program. Her research focuses on childhood sexual abuse and maltreatment and she has received several grants for her work and presented research findings both regionally and nationally. During the past three years, she has published three research articles in highly regarded nursing journals.

Mary Mayville, RN, MSN, CCE – MACN Early Career Award for Part-time Faculty
Mayville has been a part-time faculty member at Northeastern University for three years teaching in both the classroom and clinical settings. Her area of expertise is maternal-newborn nursing and she brings extensive clinical experience to this role, having held positions in neonatal intensive care, high risk antepartum, labor and delivery, postpartum and childbirth education. Mayville is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

Teri Aronowitz, RN, PhD, MSN, FNP – ENRS Distinguished Contributions in Nursing Award / Junior Investigator category
Aronowitz has more than 20 years of clinical experience as a family nurse practitioner, working mostly with minority, urban adolescents and their families. In addition, her research program focuses primarily on sexual health and decision-making; she is developing and testing a family-centered, theoretically-based intervention for use with urban, early adolescent, minority youth and their families. Her goal is to help decrease their HIV risk by delaying the age of sexual debut and increasing parent-adolescent connectedness and sexual communication. Aronowitz has received several grants and a National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The awards along with cash prizes will be presented to Dr. Nannini, Dr. McClain and Ms. Mayville on April 20th at the MACN meeting held in Regis College. Dr. Aronowitz will receive her award from the ENRS at the organization’s April conference in Providence, RI.

About Northeastern: Founded in 1898, Northeastern University is a private research university located in the heart of Boston. Northeastern is a leader in interdisciplinary research, urban engagement, and the integration of classroom learning with real-world experience. The university’s distinctive cooperative education program, where students alternate semesters of full-time study with semesters of paid work in fields relevant to their professional interests and major, is one of the largest and most innovative in the world. The University offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate programs leading to degrees through the doctorate in six undergraduate colleges, eight graduate schools, and two part-time divisions. For more information, please visit www.northeastern.edu.