“I'm good at stirring up things,” says Dr. Helen Grace, former dean of the UIC College of Nursing, “and then I leave it to other people to carry forth.”

But she also gives the resources to help those carrying it forth; her recent gift to the College of Nursing, matched by the Kellogg Foundation, will jumpstart a program for the promotion of minority nurse enrollments.

In other words, she puts her money where her mouth is.

During an informal presentation to the Minority International Research Training (MIRT) scholars on the UIC campus this March, Dr. Grace talked about her own journey to reach across cultures – first in Chicago in the 1970s, and then worldwide while working to develop health programming with the Kellogg Foundation.

After completing her doctorate in sociology at Northwestern University in 1969, Dr. Grace returned as a UIC CON faculty and embarked on creating a new master's degree in community mental health. Working on the south side of Chicago with five nursing students, including current faculty member Dr. Barbara Dancy, Dr. Grace describes this as the most valued professional experience in her entire career.

“We shared wonderful experiences with people from the community, beginning to work through a lot of issues related to diversity in the various cultures from which we had come. We came together in a real way in church basements and restaurants in the community, and with the people of the Robert Taylor homes. I realized how limited my experience had been, but I met wonderful people who were willing to put up with my ignorance and become my teachers. And when I look at my valued teachers, most of the people I would put in that category are people from communities around the world.”

Latest News! As part of our Accelerating Diversity initiative, Partnership for Advances in RN Education grant has received funding. Led by Dr. Patrick Robinson, executive assistant dean, the grant will allow u to partner with Chicago-area community colleges for early selection and mentoring of nurses earning an Associate Degree to transition to UIC to complete a BSN.

Your thoughts? How else could we accelerate diversity within our student body?