Three College of Nursing faculty members have established endowed scholarships, deepening their legacies to UCF: Drs. Diane Wink, Jean Kijek and Linda Hennig.

Together with her husband, Dr. Wink established the Diane and Lawrence Wink Endowed Nursing Scholarship for undergraduate nursing students. Dr. Wink remembers the excitement of being a nursing student—and is glad to see it continue at UCF and in her work as a nurse practitioner.

“Nursing is a field where you can, during your career, do a wide variety of different things and still be doing the core mission of the profession, which is helping people maintain and improve their health,” Dr. Wink said.

Dr. Kijek attended nursing school at New York University (NYU) at the same time Drs. Wink and Hennig did, but had a special friendship with Dr. Hennig—they were roommates. Sharing an interest in acute trauma, Drs. Kijek and Hennig met in NYU’s rehabilitation nursing program. Throughout her career, Dr. Kijek has been an advocate for professional advancement through political action.

The Kijek Doctoral Student Endowed Scholarship is for students who are enrolled in nursing’s Ph.D. program at UCF. “I always wanted to be a teacher, so I’m in education,” she said. “But my mother was once a patient when I was in high school, and I saw some things that made me want to go into nursing.”

Dr. Hennig chose to focus on rehabilitation because she was drawn to the long-term patient-nurse relationships the field offered—but technology excited her, as well. In 1998, she helped develop a web-based R.N. to B.S.N. program at UCF—the first of its kind in the state of Florida.

The Drs. Linda M. and E. Glenn Hennig, Jr. Endowed Scholarship is awarded to students in the graduate nurse educator program—and it’s also in honor of her late husband, Dr. E. Glenn Hennig, Jr., a neuropsychologist who supported nursing education. “It’s in his memory and is a part of my legacy that I wanted to have as an ongoing endowment,” she said. “Of all the things I’ve done in nursing, I think nursing education is where I’ve found my fit.”

Dr. Hennig hopes that her scholarship will help reduce stress for nursing students, help them work fewer hours outside of school and feel recognized academically. “I’m very pleased that I’m able to do this,” Dr. Hennig said.