Three days of commencement begin with College of Nursing and Health Innovation ceremony
Friday, Dec 13, 2019
• Elizabeth Couch :
The University of Texas at Arlington began celebrating its newest alumni with commencement ceremonies at College Park Center for students graduating from the College of Nursing and Health Innovation (CoNHI).
According to Dean Elizabeth Merwin, the new graduates “…are now part of a group of more than 20,000 College of Nursing and Health Innovation alumni who are making significant contributions to the health and wellbeing of residents of the great State of Texas and beyond.”
Commencement speaker Keith Zimmerman, CEO of Medical City Arlington, called CoNHI “one of the most well-respected centers for health care education in the nation.
“Every day, nurses make the greatest single contribution to quality patient experiences in our hospitals,” Zimmerman said. “And through your work each day, you have the privilege of truly serving an entire community.”
CoNHI is the No. 1 producer of baccalaureate-degreed nurses in Texas and is the largest nursing program of any public institution in the country. The newest graduates will join about 240,000 UTA alumni, who earn the highest first-year median wage of graduates from any UT System academic institution, according to the 2019 UT Smartbook.
In 2019 CoNHI was designated a 2019 Center of Excellence in Nursing Education by the National League for Nursing. UTA has made employment readiness an explicit part of its mission, providing students with both a broad education and employable skills that empower graduates not only to be learned citizens but also be assured of gainful employment in a constantly changing world.
— Randy Gentry, UTA photographer, contributed to this story.
