Press Release
June 14, 2007
Contact: Lynn McFarlane
Phone: (973) 972-8539
mcfarlld@umdnj.edu
UMDNJ Administrator Wins State and National Nursing Honors
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NEWARK — A faculty member at the University of Medicine and Dentistry has received the top nursing honor awarded by the State of New Jersey and has been invited to participate in a prestigious national fellowship program for nurses who aspire to lead and shape the Unites States healthcare system.
Dr. Gloria J. McNeal of Burlington, New Jersey, associate professor and associate dean for community and clinical affairs at UMDNJ-School of Nursing, received the 2007 Governors Nursing Merit Award in the Nurse Educator category. She also has been selected to join the 2007 Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows Program.
Each year, the Governor’s Nursing Merit Award program acknowledges the vital contribution that nurses make to New Jersey’s healthcare system. At a June 6 ceremony hosted by Health and Senior Services Commissioner Dr. Fred M. Jacobs, McNeal was one of only 10 recipients who received the award for their accomplishments in patient care, education, research, administration, management, and community health.
In addition to the Merit Award winners, 79 nominees were honored at the ceremony held at the Hyatt Regency in Princeton. Among them were two nurses who are students in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program at UMDNJ--Marianne Reilly of Tenafly and Jersey City resident Benjamin Evans.
Only 20 nurses are invited annually to join the Robert Wood Johnson fellowship program, which provides three years of executive leadership development for highly accomplished nurses. Participants remain in their current positions while they gain the experiences, insights, competencies, and skills necessary to fulfill key leadership roles in healthcare. An initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the program grants each fellow $35,000 to support education, travel and development of a leadership project.
Since 2003, McNeal has served as faculty member and administrator at UMDNJ-School of Nursing, where she has secured $1.25 million in grants to support nursing education programs and a mobile healthcare project for medically underserved populations. During her career, she has secured more than $3 million in extramural grant awards.
McNeal earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Villanova University College of Nursing, a Master of Science in Nursing from University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Wayne State University in Detroit. She is a sought-after author and presenter on a variety of healthcare topics.
She is a board member of several professional organizations including the Association of Black Nursing Faculty in Higher Education. McNeal currently serves on the editorial boards of two national nursing publications and is the editor of Visions Online, The E-Journal of Pennsylvania League for Nursing.
McNeal has received more than 25 teaching excellence awards from state, local and national organization and institutions. In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. The FAAN designation is nationally recognized by the nursing profession as the highest honor bestowed to nurse leaders in education, management, practice and research.
UMDNJ is the nation’s largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,700 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and a school of public health on five campuses. Annually, there are more than two million patient visits at UMDNJ facilities and faculty practices at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a statewide mental health and addiction services network.
