FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 12, 2005
Contact: Anika Mitchell Perkins
(662) 329-7124

Hill and Davidson present paper at NONPF annual meeting

COLUMBUS, Miss. -- Dr. Nancy Herban Hill, MUW emeritus professor and Dr. Janice Unruh Davidson, MUW graduate nursing director and professor, recently returned
from Chicago, where they were invited speakers at the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) 31st annual meeting.

Their podium presentation was titled “Evolution of a Nurse Practitioner Program: A thirty-year journey from innovation to a tradition of excellence.”

The paper they presented was based on an oral history project Dr. Davidson embarked upon when she was appointed as graduate nursing director in 2003. Her project documents the history of MUW’s nurse practitioner program as the first nurse practitioner program to be established at the graduate level in Mississippi in 1974, when the first national meeting of nurse practitioner educators was held by the group that eventually became NONPF.

Hill and Davidson highlighted the MUW graduate nursing program’s inception as an innovatively packaged program that has become a tradition of excellence with first-time pass rate success, record enrollments and a highly qualified faculty.

The mission of NONPF is to provide leadership in promoting quality nurse practitioner education at the national and international levels. Through the support of the development of instructional skills and scientific investigation in nurse practitioner education, NONPF serves the public interest by assuring the preparation of highly qualified health care professionals.

Dr. Davidson also serves as a quality curriculum consultant as well as a member of both the research and archives committees of the organization.