Kay Ivester said that she is happy with the decision of the Ivester Foundation to support Brenau’s health science programs and that she was delighted to see her mother honored by naming the Mary Inez Grindle School of Nursing in her memory.
The Ivester Foundation declined to disclose the amount of the gift, but Brenau University President Ed Schrader described it as “substantial.”
Schrader said that the gift and the naming sustain a legacy of strong female leadership in connection with the school throughout its history from Ocie Pope, the first director of the Hall School of Nursing – founded in 1959 (acquired by Brenau in 1962) to Anne Warren Thomas, the Gainesville benefactor who helped sustain and grow the nursing program in tough economic times. Thomas, for whom the Anne Warren Thomas Professor of Nursing and Health Care Leadership chair is named, made it possible for the university to build out and occupy its new facilities and establish one of the first human simulator centers in Georgia specifically for training nurses in patient care.
The Mary Inez Grindle School of Nursing currently serves about 300 students enrolled in undergraduate, master’s degree-level and doctoral programs on campuses in Gainesville and Norcross, Georgia, and online. Over the years, more than 1,500 living Brenau graduates have been licensed as nurses in Georgia and hundreds more in other states. The nursing program is fully accredited by the Washington, D.C.-based Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and has full approval through 2020 from the Georgia Board of Nursing.
The naming of the nursing school is the second high-visibility Brenau project bearing the Grindle name that is coming to fruition this year. In 2014 the Melvin Douglas and Victoria Kay Ivester Foundation provided funding to complete development of the first phases of the university’s Ernest Ledford Grindle Athletics Park in New Holland that is named for Kay Ivester’s father.
“Kay Ivester’s parents were literally salt-of-the earth folks who were indispensable to their community throughout their lives,” said Schrader.
“We see many things named for people whose legacies were economic and business prosperity. It is gratifying to commemorate those who left indelible impressions on the hearts and souls of those who interacted with them.”
