Impact in Education: Sue Schuelke, PhD

Sue Schuelke, PhD, is the recipient of the Scholar in Education Research Award. The award recognizes an individual who has advanced the science of teaching and learning through research of educational pedagogy.

• Name: Sue Schuelke, PhD
• Title: Assistant professor in the UNMC College of Nursing-Lincoln Division
• Started at UNMC: January 2016
• Hometown: Waverly, Nebraska

You are the recipient of the Scholar in Education Research Award. What is the importance of research in health care education?

As faculty, we want to provide our students with the best education possible, and we can only do this if we continue to investigate and evaluate current teaching strategies, as well as new innovative ideas. We investigate to provide the best education leading to the best patient care.

Describe your proudest moment as an educator.

My proudest moments are when I am working alongside a former student who is a great nurse or when I receive a card after a student graduates thanking me and writing how they saved a life because of something I taught them or that when their hands touch a patient, they know my hands are touching them, too.

What advice would you give other faculty members who want to have an impact in education?

Work to understand your students and support them to achieve the goal of being a great health care worker. Keep your standards high, for the sake of the patient, and help the student stretch to reach them.

Do you have a favorite quote or philosophy on teaching?

Let us never consider ourselves finished nurses. -Florence Nightingale
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. -Booker T Washington
The time is always right to do the right thing. -Martin Luther King Jr.

Learn about the UNMC Impact in Education Awards.