Distinguished Alumna Award 2005
Judy Ahlheim Beal
Class of 1975
Wasting no time after receiving her master's degree in maternal child nursing from YSN in 1975, she walked across the street and became Assistant Head Nurse on a pediatric unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital. It didn't take her long to become an educator though. Skidmore College, where she received her bachelor's degree in nursing, lured her to New York City to teach for them for two years. Knowing that continuing in a faculty role required further education, she subsequently attended Boston University. Early on, she demonstrated her ability to multi-task by receiving her doctoral degree from BU and delivering her second child---all in the same day! Beginning in 1983, she became the Director of Research in the Graduate Program at Simmons College in Boston. Since 2000, she has served as the chief academic officer of the combined graduate and undergraduate Nursing Programs.
Yale School of Nursing prides itself on graduates that continue the School's mission of leadership, clinical excellence and scholarship. She has led Simmons College for the past two decades and during her watch as Chairperson of the Nursing Department and Associate Dean of the School for Health Studies, Simmons College has experienced unprecedented growth in new program initiatives and funding. She is actively involved in leadership activities of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and Sigma Theta Tau International where she received The Mary Ann Garrigan Award for Excellence in Leadership and has been a Sigma Theta Tau Distinguished Lecturer since 1997.
She has personally advised over 650 master's research projects and her legacy can be found in the competence and richness of Simmons nursing graduates. Her research and mentoring roles are not limited to Simmons however. She is currently mentoring nurses at a community hospital outside of Boston so that they can enrich their practice with research activities.
Always the learner, she has recently completed postdoctoral education at Simmons College Graduate School of Management. She will no doubt find this new knowledge useful as she turns her educational eyes to another part of the world. She is leading the Simmons faculty in unfamiliar territory as they help an Egyptian organization develop an accelerated bachelor's nursing program modeled after Simmons' own accelerated program. Her efforts are drawing international attention from the World Health Organization where they are anxious to improve the image of nursing in that region of the world.
On the occasion of her 30th reunion, the Yale School of Nursing Alumna/us Association welcomes her home and proudly names Judy Ahlheim Beal, Class of 1975, Distinguished Alumna for 2005.
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