A major grant from the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence has been made in support of the new Nursing Faculty Practice opening this summer at NYUCD (see related story).

According to Dr. Terry Fulmer, Dean of the College of Nursing, “The Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence Award is an enormous vote of confidence in what we intend to achieve, and will provide a national platform for our work and outcomes. I would like to congratulate the entire interdisciplinary team for making the grant possible: the Colleges of Dentistry and Nursing, the School of Medicine and the Wagner School of Public Service. I believe this is a tipping point for increasing interdisciplinary practice and research at NYU. Dean Alfano’s vision and support have been extraordinary.”

“We are extremely proud and pleased to receive this gift from the Jonas Center,” added Dean Alfano. “It is an especially auspicious way to begin our program to use nurse practitioners in our dental clinics. We are grateful to the Barbara and Donald Jonas Family Fund for its generosity and to Naomi Levine, Executive Director of the NYU Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising, for her strong support of this initiative.”

The Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence is a first-of-its kind philanthropic program dedicated to tackling the toughest issues facing the nursing profession and to transforming nursing in New York City. The center, the first of three philanthropic initiatives to be pursued by the Jonas Family Fund, was established with money raised through an innovative auction of a portion of the family’s contemporary art collection that yielded $44 million.

"We looked around at where we could put this windfall to great use in our lifetimes," said Donald Jonas, "and it became abundantly clear that nurses - the unsung heroes of our healthcare system - need more champions. The nursing crisis is having a profound effect on our city and Barbara and I want to galvanize every possible sector, from policy makers to philanthropists, to take an active role in remedying the system's ills and establishing a model for change that can be replicated nationwide."