UAB School of Nursing alumna Joselyn Bacon has made a generous planned gift to create a scholarship to aid a number of UAB undergraduate nursing students each year.
A Selma native and a 1971 BSN graduate of the UAB School of Nursing, Bacon is a retired certified nurse midwife residing in Jackson, Miss. She once considered becoming a missionary nurse, and, although her career took other turns, she views her nursing career as a mission in helping patients. In committing a portion of her estate to establish the Joselyn Bacon Endowed Scholarship in Nursing, she wants to help future UAB nursing students who view nursing as a mission. “I want to help students who enter nursing for reasons I went into nursing – to take care of people, to be strong patient advocates,” she said.
After earning her UAB baccalaureate nursing degree, Bacon studied at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and earned a master’s in maternal and child health nursing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). She taught at the University of Alabama in Huntsville College of Nursing before returning to UMMC for nurse midwifery studies. She worked as a certified nurse midwife in various parts of the South, retiring in 2011 from the Mississippi State Department of Health.
Having worked her way through nursing school as an undergraduate, Bacon knows what it’s like to be a student who struggles financially. For some mission-driven future UAB nursing students facing financial challenges, she said, “I want this scholarship to make a difference.”
