Hall ’90 Earns Illinois Nurse Educator Fellowship
March 5, 2021
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Assistant Professor of Nursing Monica Hall ’90 has been named a Nurse Educator Fellow by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, supporting her research on type 2 diabetes in the African American community.
Presented by the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE), each fellow is awarded $10,000 in an effort to ensure the retention of well-qualified nursing faculty at institutions of higher learning.
“This award is a wonderful gift and will allow me to further my dissertation research,” said Hall. “Without this award, I would not be able to expand my research to include interviews of people outside of Illinois. The pandemic of course makes things a little more difficult, but I think people are adapting well and there are now resources to use that allow us to meet without being physically in the same space.”
Hall’s work on diabetes spans much of her career, beginning with her position as a Diabetes Educator at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois, where she also served as IMCU Manager and Performance Improvement Facilitator. As a member of the American Association of Diabetes Educators, she helped coordinate a research study focusing on the benefits of a Diabetes Care Team in the in-patient setting.
Hall has also been a co-investigator on multiple research studies, including the development of an insulin drip protocol that is currently used at Carle Foundation Hospital. In 2018, she earned her Ph.D. in Nursing from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she completed a dissertation on Self-Care Management in African Americans with Type 2 Diabetes.
A School of Nursing graduate from 1990, Hall knows firsthand how an IWU education that includes undergraduate research––with mentorship from dedicated educators like Hall herself––prepares nursing students for future success.
“I believe research at Illinois Wesleyan is very important, especially for nursing students, because it helps foster critical thinking skills. Having excellent critical thinking is imperative to be a good nurse.”
Hall continued, “When nursing students are allowed to help faculty in their research or are mentored by faculty who have conducted research, it places them in a better position than nursing grads from other schools. This is why Wesleyan consistently produces excellent nurses that go on to have very successful careers.”
By Rachel McCarthy ’21