Foundation Scholarships

Coolidge, Elisabeth Nursing

PENDING $1,000

PENDING

Recipient must be a student who is admitted to the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and have junior or senior status at the time the scholarship is utilized. Recipient must be engaged in clinical practicum for the academic year in which the award is utilized, and have demonstrated financial need and show great promise in the field of nursing. There is a preference for applicants who are non- traditional students, and there is an additional preference for a female student.

Application Forms: Students who are admitted to the nursing program at UW-Eau Claire will receive an email in late February/early March when the scholarship application is ready and available. The email will include the path to the online application forms. PART ONE is filled online and submitted electronically. PART TWO (the essay and activities form) is filled out online and printed off, signed and submitted to the Dean’s Assistant Office, Nursing 103, by the deadline. Only one essay can be submitted. The essay must address the eligibility criteria for each of the scholarships that they wish to apply for. Financial Need: For scholarships that indicate “financial need required” a FAFSA Financial Aid form must be filled out and there must be some level of financial need.

The Nursing Scholarship and Awards Committee will review applications and recommend a recipient to the Dean.

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The Dean will notify the recipient by letter and submit a “Scholarship Award Form” to the Financial Aid Office.

In many ways, Elisabeth (Bette) Coolidge was a woman ahead of her time. Encouraged by her immigrant parents, who had third-grade educations, Bette and her three brothers each graduated from college – one a priest, one a physician, one a dentist and Bette, who became a nurse-anesthetist. Bette was raised in East Chicago, Indiana, where her father worked in the steel mills and her mother was a homemaker. She earned her RN from St. Catherine’s Hospital in East Chicago, her CRNA from Grace Hospital in Detroit, her BS in Nursing from the University of San Diego and her MS in Nursing from Marquette University in Milwaukee. Encouraged by the nuns she worked with in the hospitals, she rigorously pursued advanced learning opportunities whenever they were presented. She became a nurse-anesthetist before the field of anesthesiology was a viable choice for physicians. Her greatest sense of professional accomplishment was never losing a patient in surgery, even when the surgical protocol for anesthesia was the either drip method, crude by today’s standards. Bette was born in 1921 and died in 2010. She is survived by her husband, daughter, son and two grandsons. Hers was a life well-lived. The recipient should write a letter of thanks and update to Mr. Harold Coolidge and forward it to the UW-Eau Claire Foundation Office, S-214.