The Estelle Osborne Award was established to honor the extraordinary leadership of Professor Osborne (1901-1981), the first black faculty member at NYU, who taught from 1945 to 1954 in what is now the College of Nursing.
The New York University College of Nursing has named Phyllis Jenkins, RN, MA, a 1969 graduate of the College, to be the guest speaker and honoree at its 16th annual Estelle Osborne Recognition Ceremony. Ms. Jenkins is being honored for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to international health and to the support of African-Americans in nursing. The ceremony will be held Thursday, February 15, at 3:30 p.m. in the NYU Kimmel Center, Room 914, 60 Washington Square South.
Born in the Bronx during the Depression, Ms. Jenkins became a licensed practical nurse, in 1952, before finishing high school. She earned her masters degree at NYU in 1969 and began assisting foreign nurses in qualifying for licensure while working in the Montefiore Hospital Psychiatric Unit. During the 1970s, Ms. Jenkins served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia and studied in Ghana. From 1980-86, she taught and consulted with the Swaziland Institute of Health Sciences and set up a postgraduate program in that tiny and very poor nation adjacent to South Africa. Ms. Jenkins also helped to establish the Swaziland Nurses Association as it broke from the segregated South African Nurses Association and worked toward acceptance of a nursing program in the University of Swaziland.
Jenkins is a founding member and first vice president of both the National Black Nurses Association and the New York Black Nurses Association. Since her retirement, she has participated in research on the relationship between HIV/AIDS and TB, volunteered with the New York City Medical Reserve Corps, and reads to graduate students at NYU’s Henry & Lucy Moses Center for Students with Disabilities.
The Estelle Osborne Award was established to honor the extraordinary leadership of Professor Osborne (1901-1981), the first black faculty member at NYU, who taught from 1945 to 1954 in what is now the College of Nursing.
The College of Nursing at the College of Dentistry is located on New York University’s historic Greenwich Village campus in New York City. The College of Nursing is one of the leading nursing programs in the United States. The College offers a Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Master of Arts and Post-Master’s Certificate Programs; and a Doctor of Philosophy in Research Theory and Development. For more information, visit www.nyu.edu/nursing.