Funding Future Nurses
September 20, 2017
Dr. Martha “Marti” Engelke (BSN 1971) knows first-hand how difficult it can be for nursing students to balance their schoolwork and jobs when overcome with schooling and living expenses. She has seen and taught nursing students for 37 years as professor of nursing at the East Carolina University College of Nursing in Greenville, NC.
So, when Engelke and her brothers Daniel (who is also a nurse) and William decided they wanted to make a meaningful impact with the money from selling shares of stock their father left them, the MSU School of Nursing came to mind. Together, the three decided to make a gift in memory of their parents.
“My father William had a high school education and my mother Angeline only finished seventh grade,” Martha says. “Today, all three of their children have graduate degrees. We wanted to honor our parents while helping support student nurses at MSU.”
Engelke recalls that this contribution is something she’d been thinking about for some time. When Marti became involved with the MSU College of Nursing Alumni Board, and began attending the annual Scholarship and Awards Banquet, the idea of a gift to the College came to the fore.
“Dr. Isabelle Payne was director of the School of Nursing when I graduated in 1971.” Martha says. “So, I’ve been gone from MSU for a long time. When you’re young and just starting out, though, you don’t have much money, so you aren’t thinking about giving back. You’re too busy concentrating on moving forward. My brothers and I had been holding on to this money for some time, because we didn’t want to just ‘buy something.’ We truly wanted to do something special. And we believe we have.”
Following graduation from MSU, Engelke first worked for the Detroit Visiting Nurses Association, and then in University Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit and outpatient clinic at the University of Michigan where she earned her Master’s in Public Health Nursing and Health Education in 1976. At the end of 1979, Marti and her husband, Stephen, moved to Greenville, where she landed a teaching position with East Carolina University.
Marti went on to earn her PhD in Sociology with a concentration in Family and Community Health and a minor in Health Education Occupations from North Carolina State University. A Professor of Nursing Science, Engelke co-taught a face-to-face undergraduate research class with 120-130 students, and a hybrid Quantitative Methods course with three to six doctoral students before retiring in 2017.
In addition to teaching, for five years, Martha led a statewide initiative to develop a school nurse case management program to address the needs of students with chronic illnesses. The project was funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Health Care Trust. Since then, she has continued to engage in research related to school nursing and students with chronic illness. Engelke’s other main research interest is the relationship of workload to students’ outcomes and school nursing.
Martha held the first endowed chair at East Carolina University and was recognized by ECU as the Community Engagement Scholar. She was also selected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, and received the outstanding research award from the National Association of School Nurses.
Marti and her husband have two daughters, Kathryn and Anna, and one grandchild; Kathryn’s daughter Charlotte.
“Over my career, I have worked in a variety of hospital and community settings and taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels,” Marti recalls. “That’s one of the great things about nursing. There are a lot of exceptional opportunities in the profession. It may take you awhile to find what you most enjoy doing, but I think nursing has been a great career for me.”
Engelke says it’s also one of the main reasons she and her brothers made their gift to the College of Nursing. She has seen how her own students struggle to juggle their courses and work schedules in order to get good grades and make ends meet financially, and Marti says she had student loans while in college.
“Our hope is that these funds will help lessen the financial burden a bit, and help students focus on their studies and complete their program,” Marti says. “We intentionally kept the funding restrictions to a minimum so more students were able to qualify.”
“As you get older, you begin to reflect on the things that have been important in your life. You want to give back,” Martha says. “And we certainly need more nurses.”
