Nursing ranks first in NIH grants

The Nursing School ranked first among nursing schools across the nation in research dollars received from the National Institute of Health, totalling approximately $4 million in grants, administrators announced yesterday. Nursing officials said the ranking shows that the Nursing School has built a prestigious reputation as a research institution. Nursing Dean Claire Fagin said yesterday that the increased funding in recent years has expedited the Nursing School's objective of developing into a premiere research institution. School officials said they knew nursing faculty's research proposals were being accepted at a high rate, but added that they had been unaware of the new number-one ranking until Associate Dean for Nursing Research Barbara Lowery was notified by mail on Monday. "We didn't know where we ranked relative to our colleague institutions," Fagin said yesterday. Lowery attributed the number-one ranking to the hard work of the Nursing faculty. "Our faculty are more successful in competing for research dollars [from NIH] than any other nursing faculty in the country," she said. The Nursing School became number one in funding this year, moving up one notch to surpass the University of Washington, a school which Fagin pointed out "was twice our size, and still is." The grants make up a "substantial enough" proportion of the school's budget. The NIH grants, which are awarded after being peer-reviewed, support a wide variety of individual nursing faculty research. Fagin said that she is very happy about the ranking. "I do think it is a culmination of major efforts in this area and of our dreams," she said. "It's a fabulous thing," Lowery said. "It's so wonderful."

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