Dean's Diamond Circle Honors Alumni & Donors

Dean’s Diamond Circle Dinner Honors Alumni, Donors

The School of Nursing recognized five of its most distinguished alumni, professors, and philanthropists at the Dean’s Diamond Circle dinner on Sept. 7 at Monroe Golf Club. The 2018 honorees were (pictured left to right with Dean Kathy Rideout): Elizabeth Sloand ’75N, Nancy Dianis ’85N (MS), Jane Tuttle, ’79N, ’84N (MS), Susan Young, and Steven Young.

The UR School of Nursing handed out its highest honors at the Dean's Diamond Circle dinner Sept. 7 at Monroe Golf Club, recognizing five of its most distinguished alumni, faculty, and philanthropists.

Read on to learn more about this year's class of honorees.

Humanitarian Award

When Elizabeth Sloand ’75N made her first medical missionary trip to Haiti in 1999, she thought it was a one-time shot to make an international contribution. Little did she suspect she would end up returning to the poverty-stricken nation several times a year for the next two decades.

“I grabbed the opportunity and really enjoyed the whole experience,” said Sloand, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. “It grew organically from me volunteering quietly on the side to become something I’ve done on a regular basis and has incorporated other students and faculty members.”

A pediatric nurse practitioner, Sloand has worked in Haiti as a clinician, nurse educator, and researcher. She has served as the East Coast team leader at the Leon Medical Mission and led health promotion and educational activities at Haitian elementary schools. She even did her dissertation there, studying child health and survival in rural Haiti.

The work dovetails with her domestic experience, which has been dedicated to caring for underserved and low-income children. She teaches students interested in community health and focuses on the health and well-being of uninsured or underinsured children and youth in East Baltimore.

She was recognized for her commitment to others in 2017 with the Audrey Hepburn Award for Contributions to the Health and Welfare of Children from Sigma Theta Tau International, and she was selected as a fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners in 2018.

Sloand began her nursing career at Strong Memorial Hospital. She earned her master’s in nursing from the University of Maryland in 1986 and joined the Baltimore City Health Department, where she became involved in its school-based health center program. She was named director of the program in 1994 and joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1995, earning her PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2007.

Legacy Award

Though neither one joined the profession, Steven Young and Susan Young have carried on their mother’s work of recruiting new generations of nurses. Their scholarship in the name of Anna Bater Young supports and encourages students to broaden their horizons and pursue education at the University of Rochester School of Nursing.

Anna Bater Young earned her nursing diploma at the University of Rochester in 1941 and subsequently joined the Emergency Department staff at Strong Memorial Hospital. She was later chosen to represent the school as a nursing instructor at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center during World War II. She returned to the University of Rochester after the war and earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing. After taking time off to raise her family, she returned to Strong in the 1960s to help combat the ongoing nursing shortage. She also began recruiting students from area high schools to join the UR nursing program. She became a trusted assistant to the school’s director Eleanor Hall and then the school’s first dean, Loretta Ford, mentoring students and reconnecting alumni with the university. She received the University Citation to Alumni in 1965 and the Sam Havens Award for distinguished service to the Alumni Admissions Program in 1988.

Honorees Steve and Susan Young share a moment with guests Betsy Enstrom, Katelyn Amicucci, and Mary Casbeer at the reception prior to the Dean’s Diamond Circle dinner.

Steven and Susan Young established the Anna Bater Young Endowed Scholarship Fund in 2007 in her memory, providing an everlasting tribute to her contributions to the school.

Steven Young is a municipal designer at Thornhoff Consulting Engineers, Inc. in Texas. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Susan Young is a senior consultant at Foth Infrastructure and Environment in Minnesota. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and aquatic environments from Allegheny College and earned a master’s degree in biology and geology from the University of New Mexico.

Distinguished Alumni Award

A clinician and educator with more than 40 years of experience, Nancy Dianis ’85N (MS) heads up clinical trials, epidemiologic research, and global health projects on a wide range of conditions for Westat, a multimillion dollar corporation providing research services to businesses, foundations, and government agencies.

She currently serves as Westat’s principal investigator, project director, and project manager on many clinical trials and clinical studies of HIV and TB infection, other emerging infectious diseases, cancer, blood-transmitted diseases, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, and trauma and is also principal investigator and corporate officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Tuberculosis Trials Consortium.

“The goal is to take information from bench to bedside for treatments that consider differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles,” said Dianis, who joined Westat in 2001. “It’s dynamic and cutting-edge science.”

An RN and educational specialist focusing on surgical, coronary, and medical intensive care, Dianis began her career as a nurse at McHenry Hospital outside of Chicago. She later moved to Rochester, where she served as associate clinical chief for medical nursing at Strong Memorial Hospital and instructor of clinical nursing at the UR School of Nursing. She went on to serve as nursing service chief for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center and director of medical and psychiatric nursing for Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

From 1985 to 2014, she held adjunct faculty positions at nursing schools at the University of Rochester, George Mason University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Maryland.

She was recognized in 1996 by the NIH with the Nursing Department’s Director’s Award, and received the CDC’s HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention Award in 2006.

Dianis received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Illinois Wesleyan University. She earned her master’s degree through the Adult Primary Nurse Practitioner Program from the University of Rochester.

Dean’s Medal

As a student at the University of Rochester School of Nursing, Jane Tuttle ’79N, ’84N (MS) learned at the feet of such giants as Eleanor Hall and Loretta Ford. Tuttle went on to join them as a nursing educator and left her own distinctive legacy at the school.

For a quarter of a century, Tuttle dedicated herself to improving nurse practitioner education. She was the longtime specialty director of the Family Nurse Practitioner program, pushing through key revisions to the curriculum that bolstered the pediatric and women’s health content in the program. Tuttle retired from the fulltime faculty in 2017 and was named professor emerita in honor of her service to the university.

“I think my collaborative style has left its mark,” Tuttle said upon her retirement. “I’ve always felt there’s got to be a way that we can work together and make the right things happen.”

Tuttle was the nursing discipline coordinator of the Leadership Education in Adolescent Health program funded by the Interdisciplinary Maternal and Child Health Bureau for 15 years, and received numerous awards for her work as an educator and clinician. A former winner of the UR School of Nursing’s Distinguished Alumni Award and Outstanding Scholarly Practitioner Award, she was named the Nurse Practitioner of the Year in 2008 by the Nurse Practitioner Association of New York State. Two years later, she was selected as a fellow by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

She holds professional membership in a number of local and national organizations and was very active with Sigma Theta Tau, serving as past president of the Epsilon Xi chapter.

Tuttle earned her associate degree in nursing from Monroe Community College, and later earned her PhD in family studies from the University of Connecticut. She taught at Yale University for eight years before joining the UR School of Nursing faculty in 1993.