Grants&Gifts Scholarship Fairfield University’s Upward Bound program has been awarded a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s TRiO program in the amount of $1,758,250 over
the next five years. Through comprehensive, holistic, co-curricular and academic programs, the Fairfield University Upward Bound Program provides low-income, potential first-generation college students with the tools necessary to access postsecondary education as full participants. The program supports students as they push beyond barriers to college access by engaging them in tutoring, mentoring, academic instruction, academic counseling, standardized testing classes, life skills workshops, cultural events, college visits, assistance with the college admissions and financial aid processes, financial literacy, career exploration, leadership development, and a summer residential program. All activities and services are provided at no cost to the students and their families. Upward Bound is part of the federally funded TRiO programs. The William T. Morris Foundation
has given $100,000 to the William T. Morris Foundation Scholarships, which benefit academically qualified students from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds who might otherwise be unable to attend Fairfield University due to financial barriers. Selected recipients demonstrate qualities such as responsibility, selflessness, innovation, and integrity. The Ernest and Joan Trefz Foundation has provided $25,000 in sup-
port of Fairfield University’s Community Partnership Scholarship Program, specifically to enhance the financial aid available to students coming from underserved areas of nearby Bridgeport, Conn.
Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies The Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies’ Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Associate Professor, Joyce Shea, DNSc, APRN, PMHCNS-BC, and Family Nurse Practitioner Program Track Coordinator, Jaclyn Conelius, PhD, APRN, have been awarded $1,208,725 in a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Advanced Nursing Education Workforce Grant over the next two years
for their project, Implementing Palliative Care Across the Community (IPAC). The purpose of the IPAC program is to provide didactic and clinical education experiences that prepare Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) and Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) students to deliver palliative care services to patients across the lifespan in underserved community-based primary care settings. The funds will support traineeships for NP students as well as program infrastructure for an expanded Academic-Practice (AP) partnership between the Egan School and Southwest Community Health Center (SWCHC). The students will be completing either an MSN or a DNP degree. Students in the IPAC Program will be required to complete a minimum of 100 hours in a precepted clinical practicum in which they learn to apply palliative care content to an identified patient population (e.g. patients with CHF, Parkinson’s disease, chronic pain syndromes, Sickle Cell disease, dementia, etc.). They will complete the remainder of their 500 required clinical hours in general primary care/primary mental health care settings. The Paul Jones Trust Fund has given $37,500 to the Paul L. Jones Nursing Scholarships, which are awarded to
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outstanding students with demonstrated financial need who would otherwise be unable to attend Fairfield. Many of the scholarship recipients are young men and women who have expressed an interest in working with the most vulnerable populations – those living in medically underserved areas where healthcare is inaccessible or unaffordable.
College of Arts and Sciences Assistant History Professor Silvia MarsansSakly, PhD, was one of only 85 university professors nationwide to receive a prestigious National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) fellowship to pursue her advanced
research in Middle Eastern history. The $50,400 grant will support her latest project — A History of Democratic Protest and Memory in Tunisia, 1864-2011 — a book-length study of the Tunisian revolt of 1864, and the impact that the memory of the revolt has had on
Silvia Marsans-Sakly, PhD.
