SAINT PAUL, Minnesota—An Andover resident has been selected a spring semester Outstanding Student at Metropolitan State University.
Jessica Stewart, College of Nursing and Health Sciences Outstanding Student Spring 2018
Jessica Stewart graduates cum laude with a Doctorate of Nursing Practice-Family Nurse Practitioner and is chosen Outstanding Student representing the university’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences. She is one of 1,058 students receiving bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees at Metropolitan State’s 102nd commencement exercises on April 28, 2018 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
At Metropolitan State University, Stewart was awarded the Minnesota Nurse Practitioners Annual Scholarship in 2017 for her capstone work and future plans for dissemination of her research. She was also awarded the Lukaszewski Family Professional Development fund from Metropolitan State in 2018 to again help further disseminate project findings on a larger scale. She is also one of three students who were selected by the dean to present her findings at the Midwest Nursing Research Society annual conference in Cleveland, Ohio earlier this month.
Stewart is a single mother of three daughters, the youngest of which she gave birth to in her second year of graduate school. In addition to being a full-time parent Stewart worked close to full-time as a nurse at Allina Health, even as she attended graduate school full-time.
“Everything I do is for those girls, and I work very hard every day trying to provide them with the best life possible,” Stewart said. “I make it a priority to be a part of every important event in my children’s life as best I can, even amongst the chaos. It has been the most rewarding and challenging experience to accomplish all that I have set forth and be so close to achieve a degree at the highest level of nursing.”
Stewart is also active in International Association of Forensic Nursing and Minnesota Chapter (IAFN), Midwest Nursing Research Society (MNRS), and Minnesota Nurse Practitioners (MNNP).
Stewart truly has a passion for nursing and caring for others in their most dire moments and has already built a reputation in her field. Her capstone project developed a protocol for Allina Health to use with domestic violence victims. She was asked to speak about this at the IAFN in Reno, Nevada. She plans to submit her work to the Journal of Emergency Nursing for publication.
“Jessica is one of the most motivated, driven, dedicated doctoral students I have had a privilege to be a faculty chair. She is a leader in her field of healthcare and doctoral education for nurse practitioners,” said the faculty member who nominated Stewart Dr. Kerry Johnson, professor in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. “She is an outstanding student in all of the areas of her life, work, studies, and family.”