New and returning nursing students in Lincoln will notice a quilt displayed in the new UNMC College of Nursing Lincoln Division building shared with the University Health Center in Lincoln. The quilt, which hangs in The Sharon K. Holmberg, Ph.D., Health Assessment Laboratory, represents the career and life of Dr. Holmberg, a 1967 UNMC College of Nursing alum.
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Graduation photo of Sharon Holmberg, Ph.D., 1967 graduate of UNMC College of Nursing. |
The laboratory was named with a gift from the Holmberg family in her honor. Dr. Holmberg was 69 years old when she passed away in Omaha in 2015.
Rose Marie (Holmberg) Kastl, one of Dr. Holmberg’s sisters, said the quilt was the family’s gift to Dr. Holmberg who had it on a wall in her bedroom.
“Sharon led a very remarkable and productive life. She had friends all over the world,” Kastl said. “Sharon spent two years in Sweden studying public health nursing. She was part Swedish and learned Swedish.”
After graduating from UNMC, she moved to New York City and worked at Bellevue Hospital then at Mt. Sinai Hospital where she was head nurse in the coronary care unit. She earned her master’s degree from New York University Medical Center in 1972, while working in the hospital as a staff/head nurse in the psychiatric unit.
Then she moved to New Hampshire where she was clinical supervisor for psychiatric-mental health nursing at the School of Nursing in Durham. She taught at Mount St. Mary College in Hookset, and at St. Anselms College in Manchester. In 1977, Dr. Holmsberg received a special two-year stipend to study psychiatric rehabilitation at the Swedish Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, where she earned a post-masters certificate in social welfare.
In 1978, she returned to the U.S., to accept a position as professor of nursing at Yale University, along with an appointment as unit chief in the Connecticut Mental Health Center.
She left Yale to earn a Ph.D. at the University of Rochester in New York and served as an associate professor of nursing at Indiana University School of Nursing five years before returning to New York to teach as a tenured professor in the State Universities of New York system.
“Sharon is no longer here. I’m just glad the quilt can be displayed in a place that would mean so much to her,” said Carolyn Holmberg, Dr. Holmberg’s sister-in-law.
I went to school with Sharon at the University of Rochester. She was an amazing nurse and scholar.
I attended the CON in Omaha with Sharon, graduating in 1967. It's nice to see her remarkable career honored. Nancy Oleson Scheet
How thoughtful of her to share this gift with CON community.
Mary K Smid
Sharon, Joan Thomas and I went to New York City shortly after graduation when we didn't know whether or not we had passed our boards. We learned about the big city while working at Mt Sinai Hospital. Sharon was interested in other people and in new experiences. She made friends everywhere we went…with our mailman, the security guard at United Nations headquarters, children at the zoo. I knew that she would be successful but never dreamt that she would accomplish as much as she did. She certainly lived a full life! Joan Vehec