The School of Nursing has named Dr. John “Jack” W. Rowe as the recipient of its Josephine A. Dolan Award for Distinguished Service. Rowe, who is immediate past chairman of UConn’s Board of Trustees, was honored at the school’s annual Reflections of Excellence awards ceremony on Oct. 23.
The Dolan Award, named for the school’s first faculty member, is the nursing school’s highest recognition for distinguished service.
Dr. Rowe and his wife, Valerie Rowe, sponsor the John and Valerie Rowe Health Professions Scholars Program at UConn. Their initial gift and recent $2 million pledge to the UConn Foundation help support academically talented Connecticut honors undergraduates who come from low-income families and underrepresented demographic groups, and who hope to prepare for careers in nursing and other health professions.
Scholarship recipients meet regularly for interdisciplinary Rowe Scholars Seminars, pursue original research for honors theses, serve as campus leaders, and are expected to continue their educations at the finest graduate schools in nursing, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and allied health, in preparation for leadership positions in their future healthcare communities.
“Dr. Rowe’s allegiance is steadfast to the future of healthcare as a necessarily interdisciplinary enterprise,” says Anne Bavier, dean of UConn’s School of Nursing. “He is a physician who understands and values the importance of the state’s flagship School of Nursing to the future of Connecticut’s healthcare, especially in caring for our underserved demographics. He shares our school’s view of nursing as central to shaping the future of human health.
Bavier notes that it was under Rowe’s leadership as chairman that the UConn Board of Trustees approved the school’s petition for a $14-million, state-of-the-art learning facility, designed for nursing education in the 21st century.
“Dr. Rowe is a true visionary for healthcare and a missionary for the profession of nursing,” she says. “Our gratitude to him is huge.”
Rowe has served on the medical school faculties of Harvard and Columbia universities, and as CEO of Mount Sinai Medical Center and School of Medicine, and Aetna Inc. He is currently on a one-year sabbatical from Columbia, pursuing research in gerontology at Stanford University.
Rowe traces the roots of his accomplishments to his own education and personal history as a scholarship recipient. “I had the benefit of higher education only because I had full academic scholarships to college,” he says. “My family otherwise would not have been able to send me to school.
“I’ve had the opportunity to be trained at the finest institutions in the world,” he adds. “I cannot imagine my life without the benefits of higher education.”
