The campus community is invited to celebrate the retirements of College of Health Sciences faculty Terry-Ann Gibson, Darcy Anderson, Kim Martz and Jane Grassley. The celebration will be held from 3-4:30 p.m. Monday, April 29, in the Farnsworth Room of the Boise State Student Union Building, where there will be an ice cream sundae and fruit bar.
Gibson has worked for the Department of Kinesiology for 38 years as a dedicated and caring teacher of numerous courses. Her main area of research was on developing exercise programs that help older adults maintain or improve their functional abilities to enhance their quality of life.
Throughout her time at Boise State, Gibson helped develop the Fit and Fall Proof curriculum – an older adult exercise program designed to reduce the incidence of falls – for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Additionally, Gibson worked with the local Health Education Network and was the secretary/treasurer for the Idaho Alliance for Health Recreation and Dance.
Anderson has taught at Boise State for nine years in nursing education. Her main focus has been in the public health setting with emphases on women’s health, providing immunization and community outreach. Anderson has taught community health, management and leadership, and medical surgical courses for the School of Nursing. She previously worked in the emergency room, home health, hospice and oncology.
Martz has worked for the School of Nursing for 15 years teaching leadership and management clinicals at the senior level of the baccalaureate nursing program, as well as the profession capstone course. She has been awarded professor emeritus and is the graduate faculty for the School of Nursing Doctorate of Nursing Practice, and affiliate faculty for the Center for the Study of Aging at Boise State.
During her time at Boise State, Martz conducted research on hospice, palliative care in the intensive care unit, end of life issues and vulnerable populations. Martz has served as a mentor to many nursing undergraduate students in research projects. As a member of Idaho’s Quality of Life Coalition, she taught advance care planning classes in the local community. Most recently, she was one of five researchers awarded a $10,000 seed grant from the Gary and Mary West Foundation for her proposal “Examining the Impact of Palliative Care Referrals on Concordance of Care for Discharged ICU Patients.” Martz plans to continue to be involved with research grants and projects to further the nursing profession surrounding end of life care.
Grassley has served as a professor, mentor and the Jody DeMeyer Endowed Chair in Nursing for nine years in the School of Nursing. As the endowed chair, Grassley mentored colleagues in developing their research programs, as well as pursuing funding for her own research projects. As a board certified lactation consultant, Grassley played a key role in research studies exploring issues related to promoting breastfeeding, such as evaluating effective interventions for improving the breastfeeding support that mothers receive when giving birth to late or pre-term infants.
While at Boise State, Grassley held a joint appointment with Women’s Services at St. Luke’s Regional Health System to collaboratively develop research projects with the Treasure Valley hospitals’ lactation consultants. There, Grassley also served as a mentor for the St. Luke’s Nursing Research and Evidence Based Practice Fellowship Program, where she mentored nurses in the local health system.
Grassley has won multiple awards highlighting her efforts and achievements, like the Institute of Translational Health Sciences Academics/Community Partnership Award for her project, “A Partnership with Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to Prepare Mothers During Pregnancy to Breastfeed a Late Preterm or Early Term Infant,” for which she was awarded $20,000.
She also was selected as the 2019 recipient of the Anna M. Shannon Mentorship Award presented by the Western Institute of Nursing for her mentorship to students, researchers and colleagues. As a teacher and nurse scientist, Grassley strived to make learning and research a meaningful and collaborative experience for all.