Alumna Rachel Sheets Zook Gives $210,000
Zook Gift Strengthens Faculty
“We are delighted the College has been remembered by alumna Rachel L. Sheets Zook, a nurse whose generosity will enhance our students’ success and contributions to the profession of nursing through support of faculty research and innovation, technology and evidence-based teaching strategies, and professional development,” says Kathleen Williamson, PhD, MSN, RN, academic dean and president, Mount Carmel College of Nursing.
The $210,000 planned gift from Rachel Zook’s estate was given to the Mount Carmel Alumni Association, whose board members directed it toward MCCN’s “Our Legacy of Learning” campaign, which kicked off on Founder’s Day (Sept. 15, 2020) to strengthen, support and sustain MCCN.
The largest “Our Legacy of Learning” campaign gift to date, the funds will establish the Rachel Zook, RN, Memorial Faculty Innovation Scholarship, inaugurate the Rachel Zook, RN, Memorial Speaker Series, and extend the existing MCCN Nightingale Faculty Fellows Program.
Rachel Zook, RN, Memorial Faculty Innovation Scholarship – The Rachel Zook, RN, Memorial Faculty Innovation Scholarship provides the needed funds ($5000 per year for a total of $25,000 over five (5) years) allowing MCCN faculty to advance their research, scholarship, professional and creative activities in their area of specialty. The College promotes faculty scholarship, and these funds will further advance and directly support these activities and highlight the scholarly work of our faculty. This award is intended to provide financial support for the direct costs of research studies, demonstration projects, feasibility studies or other forms of proof of concept, to enable faculty members to leverage the results and apply for external funds to support their research, scholarship or creative activities. These scholarships are competitive and faculty members must apply.
Rachel Zook, RN, Memorial Speaker Series ($40,000 per year for four (4) years) will bring nationally recognized experts, authors, and speakers to provide interesting and timely information about nursing arts and policy, either in-person or virtually. Open to faculty, staff, students, alumni, members of MCCN Board of Trustees, and MCCN donors, the Series will also be a mechanism to engage our alumni and nursing colleagues across the region to encourage lifelong learning.
MCCN Nightingale Faculty Fellows Program – The MCCN Nightingale Faculty Fellows program was created in 2020 as a catalyst to drive the adoption of new and emerging technology and impact our faculty’s pedagogy and student success. This fellowship program ($5000 per year for a total of $25,000) promotes a collaborative community of faculty who address teaching, learning, and use of technology through mentoring to aid in the implementation of teaching and learning innovations. The Faculty Fellows assist in continuing our legacy of academic excellence in the face of rapidly changing times while working with their peers to identify challenges and explore how technology and evidence-based teaching strategies can help overcome them.
We Remember Rachel
“I remember Rachel as always having a smile on her face and a willingness to do for others,” MCCN President Emeritus Ann Schiele, PhD, RN, said. “She attended many of the Alumni Homecoming banquets and, next to her husband and their chronically ill child whom she provided care for, Mount Carmel was her next love.”
Rachel L. Sheets Zook, a 1954 graduate of Mount Carmel School of Nursing, was born Feb. 10, 1933, in Kilbourne, Ohio. She married Ronald Zook in December 1955 and practiced in the office of an otolaryngologist, as a home health nurse and at the Columbus Cancer Clinic (forerunner of today’s LifeCare Alliance) until their son Dwight Alan was born in 1956. Sadly, he passed at age 18 in 1979 and her husband died in 2008. Rachel and her husband enjoyed 52 years of marriage, at one time living on a small farm in Liking County where they bred American Kennel Club Brittany Sporting dogs. For more than 30 years they competed in AKC events in field trials and obedience events with their dogs. Rachel was residing in a senior residence Delaware at the time of her passing, Oct. 18, 2016.