St. Kate’s News
Julie Michener
Phone: (651) 690-6521
Cell: (651) 253-8931
Fax: (651) 690-6042
jcmichener@stkate.edu
Amy Gage
Director of Marketing and Communications
Phone: (651) 690-6829
Cell: (612) 381-4110
agage@stkate.edu
Contact St. Kate's
Two professors honored with Kelly Faculty Excellence Award
By Julie Michener
Sept. 30, 2009
Professors Susan Dandridge Bosher and Margaret Dexheimer Pharris were presented with the 2009 Bonnie Jean Kelly and Joan Kelly Faculty Excellence Award for their groundbreaking text that aims to make nursing education more culturally inclusive worldwide.
St. Catherine University Senior Vice President Colleen Hegranes announced the award at an all-campus gathering Sept. 9. The prestigious award, which the University has bestowed annually since 2006, carries a $10,000 cash prize.
Bosher is an associate professor of English and director of the English as a Second Language (ESL) program at St. Kate’s. Pharris is an associate professor of nursing in the University’s Henrietta Schmoll School of Health.
The two edited an anthology of essays, Transforming Nursing Education: The Culturally Inclusive Environment (Springer Publishing, 2009) that intends to help nursing schools critique and redesign their curricula and approach to education. Available in university libraries across the United States, the text also has been distributed in Canada, Australia, Europe and Asian Pacific countries.
"The resumes of both these professors are long and impressive,” said Hegranes. “The themes that run through their work tell the story of their work together. Their passion for social justice, for care of persons and the importance of language in forging an inclusive multicultural environment wherever they work has resulted in significant accomplishments that bring recognition not only to them and St. Catherine’s, but most importantly, make a difference in people’s lives.”
Bosher and Pharris received a $10,000 Carol Easley Denny Award from the University in the academic year 2007-08 to develop the anthology. Their goal was to guide and inspire nursing education programs to create inclusive environments where all students have an equal chance to succeed.
Bosher wrote, for example, about linguistic simplification and preparing ESL students for the language and cultural demands of nursing programs. Pharris, in her essay, defines racism as being institutionalized, personally mediated, internalized and color-blind. She discusses how each aspect of racism pervades nursing education and practice -- and puts nurses at odds with the profession’s core principles of caring, health, justice and equal treatment.
“St. Kate’s has been a wonderfully supportive environment not only for me and my work but also for the students I have worked with over the years,” said Bosher. “As I see the population of multicultural and multilingual students grow, it’s a testament to the acceptance, openness and the institution’s desire to move into the 21st century and create a more equitable, just and sustainable life for everyone.”
About Susan Bosher
Bosher’s writing in this field has also been recognized with the St. Kate’s Carol Easley Denny Award for faculty excellence in teaching, research and community service during the 2005-06 academic year.
She has taught ESL in higher education since 1984 and has taught in Germany and Turkey. From 1999 to 2002, she served as an ESL expert for a federal grant to recruit and retain multicultural and economically disadvantaged students in nursing.
She developed and has been teaching an “English for Nursing” course since 2000. Her first of two textbooks on ESL for nursing, English for Nursing, Academic Skills, was published in 2008 by the University of Michigan Press.
Bosher’s service as language coordinator for the Urban Library Program led her to initiate a Hmong language and culture course at St. Kate’s that has grown to a series of three courses.
She completed her Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Columbia University, Teachers College, in New York and her doctorate in second languages and cultures education from the University of Minnesota.
About Margaret Pharris
Margaret Dexheimer Pharris is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of adolescent health, recovery for teen victims of trauma, and community health. She holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Public Health, and is a Registered Nurse and a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.
Last July, she delivered the keynote address at a conference in Durban, South Africa, sponsored by the International Centre for Nursing Ethics and hosted by the University of Kwa Zulu-Natal School of Nursing. The conference was in advance of the 24th Congress of the International Council of Nurses in Durban, attended by 5,000 nurses worldwide.
In addition to teaching public health nursing, Pharris conducts community-based action research projects with St. Kate’s students and faculty. She helped establish a National Community Center of Excellence in Women’s Health at NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center in Minneapolis, where she chairs the quality assurance committee of the Board of Directors.
She has led efforts to evaluate the negative effects of racism on health and well being. Pharris also was a co-investigator of a funded research project that examined how public health nursing visits affected victims of sexual assault.
In 2008 she co-led a “Global Search for Justice” (GSJ) course, “Women’s Health,” with Professor of English Pamela Fletcher that explored the connections among spirituality, culture, history, economics, environment, politics and health in three Mexican towns and villages.
Pharris was the 2002 Ruth Neil Murray Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Tennessee and in 2004 was a distinguished visiting professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
About the Kelly prize
Following award ceremonies, Kelly award winners Margaret Pharris (left) and
Susan Bosher discussed their work with alumna Joan Kelly '46, whose
generous gift endowed the award. Photo by Rebecca Zenefski '10.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of St. Kate’s, Kelly credits her liberal arts education and the Sisters of St. Joseph for her success after she joined her father’s business and led it to national standing.
The Bonnie Jean Kelly and Joan Kelly programs are all co-named to honor Joan’s late sister, Bonnie Jean, who attended St. Kate’s for a brief time before her death.
This is the fourth year the award has been presented. Past recipients include Mary Ann Brenden, associate professor of social work; Laurie Swabey, professor and chair of the ASL/Interpreting Department; and Mary Wagner, professor and program director of the Master of Library and Information Science program.
Contact Julie Michener, (651) 690-6521
