Honorary Degrees for Two with Deep Penn Nursing Ties
Neville E. Strumpf, PhD, Professor of Nursing and Dean Emerita, and physician, surgeon, and human rights activist Denis Mukwege, who recently won a Nobel Peace Prize and was the recipient of the 2016 Penn Nursing Renfield Foundation Award for Global Women’s Health, will both receive honorary doctor of sciences degrees during the University of Pennsylvania commencement on Monday, May 20, 2019.
February 13, 2019Strumpf is a renowned educator and expert in the nursing care of older adults. During her tenure at Penn’s School of Nursing from 1982 until her retirement in 2008, she founded and was director of the School’s Center of Gerontologic Nursing Research and its Hartford Foundation Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence. She also served as interim dean of the School, and for 15 years she directed its nationally top-ranked Gerontology Nurse Practitioner Program. Under her leadership and innovative scholarship, Penn Nursing was among the first to integrate gerontology into the undergraduate curriculum.
Mukwege is internationally recognized as an advocate on behalf of sexual-violence survivors and for his efforts to bring greater global attention to the crimes of sexual violence as a weapon of war. As the founder of Panzi Hospital at Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mukwege helped develop a holistic response for victims of gender-based sexual violence committed by armed groups in that region. This pioneering model of integrating psychological and medical care, legal assistance, and socio-economic support has been implemented in countries across Africa.
To learn more about the other honorary degree recipients, click here to read the full Penn Today article.