We would like to nominate Patricia Clinton to be the recipient for the DAISY Faculty Award. The criteria for the award state that “Candidates should demonstrate evidence of innovation as a Nurse Educator, as an educational leader, and as a mentor and role model to students”. We believe Pat epitomizes these characteristics and is very much worthy to receive this special award. Although Pat is highly respected as a champion for children, the unique contribution we would like to highlight is her enormous contribution to the field of psychiatric mental health for the nurse practitioner students at the University of Iowa College of Nursing, as well as to the citizens of Iowa who have limited to no access to a mental health provider in their community. For at least the past 10 years there has been a dire lack of psychiatrists and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners in the state of Iowa. Mentally ill patients have had to wait weeks or months for services and, when able to get appointments have often had to travel long distances to be seen. In 2006, Dr. Clinton submitted a grant proposal, “Enhancing Access to Mental Health Services”, to the Iowa Department of Public Health. The grant sought funding to make access to mental health services in Iowa more available by increasing the number of Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners. This funding was received and has enabled the College of Nursing to convert the graduate psychiatric mental health courses to on‐line formats so that students who are at a distance from the CON can more easily pursue graduate education. It has also provided funding which has enabled the CON to establish a comprehensive data base of clinical sites in Iowa that can provide practicum experiences for students and has helped identify PMH APNPs across the state who have helped precept our students. Money from the grant has been used for PMH faculty recruitment & to sponsor speakers for some other NP conferences, such as the School Nurse conference and the Iowa Nurse Practitioner conference. And most importantly, the grant funding has helped provide financial aid for 37 PMH NP program students. Sixteen of those students have graduated and fifteen of them are currently practicing as PMH NPs in Iowa. Nine more students will graduate in July, 2012, and all of them plan to remain in Iowa. The remaining 12 continue in the graduate program, and new students will be funded as they enter the program. Dr. Clinton is a wonderful role model and mentor for all the NP students at the CON and she has been especially supportive of PMH NP students. She has an exhaustive knowledge about the certification process that students face upon graduation, and has helped steer them through that process as smoothly as possible. As the director of the graduate program, she is a mentor to many of our students who discuss their career aspirations with her, but she has also been an effective mentor and role model to the PMH faculty. She is unfailingly supportive in helping faculty provide the best possible PMH program, and this support has enhanced the College’s mission in providing exceptional PMH nurse practitioners to the state of Iowa. Pat’s visionary nursing education innovations are making, and will continue to make, an enormous life affirming impact on psychiatric mental nurse practitioner students and on patients with mental health conditions across the State of Iowa through her educational leadership in the development of the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Program. Her compassionate and tireless efforts on behalf of an inadequately served and stigmatized populations is making a long overdue impact on care of persons with severe and persistent mental illness, as psychiatric nurse practitioners educated at the University Of Iowa College Of Nursing manage the health care of persons with complex psychiatric health conditions. Through prevention and early and consistent intervention, people with mental illnesses can be managed in their local communities. Nurse practitioner students gain skills and provide care to persons in communities which previously had minimal or no mental health care practitioners. The provision of psychiatric nursing care can help to avoid unnecessary hospitalize‐ tions or needing to enter the prison system as a means of receiving psychiatric care. Pat has been a champion for a population vulnerable to stigma, misunderstanding and inequitable care. Her efforts have helped create the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program, expanding the knowledge and skills of nurse practitioners, and bring mental health services to those most in need across the state. The impact of her passionate and compassionate efforts can‐ not go unrecognized. We strongly support her nomination for the 2012 DAISY Faculty Award at the University Of Iowa College Of Nursing. Sincerely, From (2) Clinical Assistant Professors To whom it may concern- From a student perspective, I have known Pat Clinton for the past 20 years. In the 90’s, I was a graduate student at the University of Iowa (UI) College of Nursing (CON) working on becoming a pediatric nurse practitioner. In the early 2000’s, I was in the doctoral program at UI’s CON. Now, I am finishing a post-doctorate at the same fine institution of higher learning. Pat has encouraged, supported, and inspired me all the way. Back in the 90’s, I recall Pat having leadership roles at national conferences, in professional organizations/journals, and being on national boards. How proud she made us feel to see her name and face representing us nurses, nurse practitioners, the University of Iowa, and the state of Iowa on a national level. At the University of Iowa, I think Pat was instrumental in keeping the College of Nursing on the cutting edge. With the drastic change in health care over the past 20 years, leadership at the College of Nursing appears to have been quite responsive, flexible, and adaptive to needed changes to keep the program afloat, take advantage of the opportunity to move nursing up the healthcare hierarchy, and make nurses all they could be in this down economy and high need time. Pat helped nurses become part of the solution as to what was wrong in healthcare. Pat’s vision and administrative skills has gotten her to the top of the doctoral program. To us students, Pat has been a great educator who helped to make us all we could be. Pat continued to blaze the advanced practice nursing trail that Loretta Ford started in the 1960’s. After becoming and practicing as a nurse practitioner, she became an educator and helped to develop the nurse practitioner program at Iowa. Due to that program, we students can continue to take advanced practice nursing to higher levels. Even though I have not had the opportunity to become a close personal friend of Pat’s, Pat gives people the feeling that she is someone we can turn to in time of need, share our joys with, and dream our dreams. She has a positive spirit and warm heart. She is objective and solution focused. She is witty and has a sense of humor. She has come to my rescue in times of crisis. Despite the adversity in her own personal life last year, she always maintained a positive and professional front. I am most appreciative that my journey in life crossed path with Pat Clinton. As I finally depart the UI CON later this year, I will take a part of Pat with me. Just as she took the ball further down the court from Loretta Ford, Pat has passed the ball on to us, her students, to play the best game they can in this healthcare arena. To anyone who has spoken with Pat, they know that she is the deep voice of confidence. Pat Clinton would make Loretta Ford proud… for nurse practitioner educator Pat Clinton is not a “shrinking violet”. Thank you for this opportunity to give back a little of what Pat has given us. Sincerely- From a student, DNP, ARNP, PMHS