Young-Mason named Distinguished Professor

By Barbara Pitoniak, News Office staff

Jeanine Young-Mason

ursing professor Jeanine Young-Mason has been appointed a Distinguished Professor by President William M. Bulger. The appointment was made following approval by the Board of Trustees at its Nov. 6 meeting on the Amherst campus.

     The designation recognizes Young-Mason for outstanding academic distinction. She was recommended for the honor by Chancellor John V. Lombardi, Charlena Seymour, interim senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and provost, and Eileen Breslin, dean of the School of Nursing.

     Young-Mason joined the faculty in 1985. A fellow of the American Academy of Nursing since 1994, she is nationally and internationally recognized as a leading scholar and researcher of understanding human suffering and the development of the concept of compassion. The primary sources for her research are art, literature, and life accounts of psychiatric and somatic illness.

     Her research has been published in nursing literature, including Clinical Nurse Specialist, Journal of Professional Nursing, and the Nursing Forum. She has also published three books, most recently, The Patient's Voice: Experience of Illness, a compilation of autobiographical case studies written by children and adults who have experienced illness and intended to provide caregivers with insight into patients' emotional responses to illness.

     Since 1991, Young-Mason has written a regular column, "Nursing and the Arts," for Clinical Nurse Specialist, and she has been a featured speaker at numerous conferences and symposia in the U.S. and internationally. She is the recipient of the prestigious Edith Moore Copeland Award for Excellence in Creativity, given by Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

     In 1998, she received the College Outstanding Teacher Award from the School of Nursing. She is also co-director of the Community Arts Health and Healing Project, a unique interdisciplinary project that joins arts and health care in outreach programs presented in hospitals, senior centers, long-term care institutions, and special schools.

     "Professor Young-Mason has already received accolades from those within her profession and we are, indeed, fortunate to have her on our faculty," said Seymour. "All of her awards and recognition that she receives serve to increase the status and visibility of the School of Nursing."