Dear Makenzie:

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you have been selected by administrators and colleagues to receive the 2025 DAISY For Extraordinary Nurse Educators. This award demonstrates appreciation for nursing faculty for their commitment and inspirational influence on their students.

The purpose of this award is to recognize nurses who have made a difference in students' and patients’ lives and have impacted the future generation of nurses. As such, you have been nominated for this award for your exceptional care, compassion, and excellence in teaching.

Since starting in the College of Nursing as an Instructor in 2023, in a short amount of time, you have taken on the role of Course Coordinator for NUR 371, and you have contributed to making innovative changes to this course to align with teaching principles in Behavioral Health Nursing. Your leadership style is one of being inclusive and open to others’ ideas and expertise. You have helped to reorganize the course, enhance clinical assignments, and refine rubrics. In addition, you have been part of the CON Curriculum Revision and are working to revise NUR 371 to align with the new Essentials. Not only have you oriented and mentored new faculty members to the course; you have impacted other Nursing courses, especially NUR 333 and NUR 371 by developing a de-escalation training session for nurses.

Your colleagues went on to say that a previous student, M, shared that during one of his classes, you taught the importance of keeping a Narcan nasal spray to use when a person stops breathing. The student had kept a can of this nasal spray and was called upon in an emergency to use the spray when one of his patients stopped breathing. He was later told that this action contributed to saving this person's life. This is just one example of outstanding excellence in nursing education and its impact on future nurses in practice.

Congratulations, Makenzie, on this important recognition!