Holly Miller, director of both the Basic BSN and BRAND nursing programs at the UW
Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing, oversees UW student David Cortes, from Bolivia,
in his skills and treatment of a simulated patient. Miller’s intentions -- with Cortez
and with every student she has taught through her career -- have been to make sure
future human patients will receive exceptional care. Miller recently received the
UW College of Health Sciences Outstanding Career Achievement Award. (UW Photo)
Holly Miller recently received the 2018 University of Wyoming College of Health Sciences
(CHS) Outstanding Career Achievement Award.
Miller, currently director of both the Basic BSN and BRAND nursing programs at the
UW Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing and Clinical Simulation Center coordinator, received
her award at the CHS award recognition event April 26. Miller will retire from teaching
this month.
“Miller is truly one of the best teachers I’ve worked with over the years,” says Mary
Burman, dean of the Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing. “She combines the ability to
challenge students, even making them a bit uncomfortable by stretching them as clinicians
but, at the same time, providing care and support to them.”
Miller has 30 years of experience in nursing education, all with UW, where she began
her employment with the Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing in 1988. She began as the
Learning Resource Center coordinator (now Clinical Simulation Center coordinator)
and has continued in that capacity until the present. In 1996, she added clinical
instructor to her job duties, supervising acute care medical-surgical clinical rotations.
Over time, she became the undergraduate clinical coordinator, the school’s Occupational
Safety and Health Administration officer, the clinical agency coordinator for lvinson
Memorial Hospital and director of the Basic BSN and BRAND programs.
Miller was instrumental in designing and setting up the state-of-the-art simulation
center when the school moved to its present location in 2005. She has used her knowledge
of nursing education and simulation to recruit hundreds of students to UW over the
years, and provided many tours of the simulation center to introduce students and
their parents to the joys of nursing.
For the past three years, Miller has led her undergraduate teaching colleagues in
the development of coursework for the new statewide curriculum, Revolutionizing Nursing
Education in Wyoming (known as the ReNEW program); and continues to provide support
for the implementation of the new curriculum. Further evidence of her contribution,
along with other UW nursing faculty, to the quality of nursing student outcomes is
the recent achievement of a 100 percent student pass rate on the NCLEX, nursing’s
national licensure examination.
JD Rawlings, a former UW student, says Miller has been a large influence on his life
and integral to his nursing career.
“I can recall sitting in the downstairs of the student health building (where the
School of Nursing used to be located), watching Holly as she taught a room full of
nursing students basic skills and techniques with precision and safety, compassion
and enthusiasm, earning her the place of being the most memorable instructor I had.”
Additionally, Miller has been a role model for professionalism for faculty and students
by maintaining active membership in the Wyoming Nurses Association, the American Nurses
Association and the local chapter of Sigma Theta Tau, the international honor society
of nursing. Even though her job description does not require scholarship productivity,
Miller published in the Journal of Nursing Education, a well-regarded nursing education
journal, and has presented regionally and nationally on simulation in nursing education.
This is not the first time Miller has been recognized. She was recognized as the Albany
County Nurse of the Year in 1998; earned the UW Excellence in Advising Award in 2002;
was given the UW CHS Meritorious Service Award in 2006; and was honored as a Mortar
Board “Top Prof” in 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2016. In 2012, Miller received the CHS Outstanding
Teacher Award. Recently, she was the recipient of the WYO-Gold Student Alumni Association
“Cowboy of the Month,” recognizing her for her school pride and love of the entire
UW community.
“I love to watch Holly teach, as her passion for patient safety and advocacy always
shines through,” says Ann Marie Hart, a UW professor of nursing. “When she teaches,
it’s as if she can see the actual patients for which these future nurses will provide
care, and she is doing everything she possibly can to ensure these patients will receive
the safest and best care possible.”
