Professor, Researcher Prepares Students for Careers, Receives Praise

Managing Editor

Photo by Linna Jones

SAB Meets - Mindy Holcomb, director of Student Programs and Activities, and Student Activities Board Chairperson Yvonne Hinshaw listen at a meeting held Feb. 9. The board discussed funding for various items.

   Two different publications will publish articles by a University of Arkansas-Monticello professor and researcher this year.

   The Journal of Women in Aging and the Applied Nursing Research journal will publish articles by Laura Evans, assistant professor in the School of Nursing.

   An article titled “Because We Don’t Take Better Care of Ourselves: Black Women’s Explanatory Models of Heart Disease” will be published this summer by the Journal of Women in Aging.

   Evans said she expects the article “Rural Black Women’s Thoughts About Exercise” to be in the next month’s issue of Applied Nursing Research, as it has already been revised.

   She completed qualitative research about southern rural black women.

   She said she was interested in what women thought caused and prevented heart disease.

   Growing up and living in Warren, she researched the thoughts of women in the area.

   According to Pam Gouner, dean of the School of Nursing, Evans has many strengths, technological skills and recent research experience as well as being a published author.

   “It’s great for students to have a current researcher on board,” Gouner said. “She is an inspiration to our faculty.”

   Before taking her first teaching job in the fall of 2008, Evans worked as a nurse practitioner with the Arkansas Department of Health.

   “I’ve always known I wanted to teach,” she said.

   She said she decided to go back to school when she knew it was time to do something else.

   She obtained her doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.

   Gouner said Evans fits right into the role of Nurse Educator in our faculty.

   “She is a UAM nursing alumnus who loves the university, students and faculty,” she said. “It’s really nice to have her make UAM nursing her home.”

   Evans teaches a Writing for Publication course in which students will submit manuscripts, hopefully to be accepted for publication.

   Evans said as far as she knows, this is the first time the course has been taught at UAM.

   She said she teaches how to write a scientific manuscript, such as clinical manuscripts, that will prepare students for the field.

   Gouner said Evans offers nursing education in a very kind and compassionate manner which creates kind compassionate caregivers.

   “Dr. Evans explains everything in a way that the students understand. If we have questions, she is there to answer them,” said Leanna Hollingsworth, a junior nursing major. “If someone doesn't understand, she explains it until they do.”

   Gouner said she wants the school to have a positive image and Evans adds to that image.

   Hollingsworth described Evans as a very intelligent woman. 

   “She is willing to help you,” she said.

   Senior nursing major Brooke Thurman, who serves as vice president of UAM’s Student Nurses Association, said Evans knows her material and genuinely cares for her students.

   “She is amazing,” Thurman said.

   Evans is also helping students start a chapter of the international honor society Sigma Theta Tau. She will serve as the faculty adviser.

   She said she hopes to have everything in place soon so students may be recognized at graduation in May.

   Evans too, is a member of Sigma Theta Tau, along with the National League for Nursing, American Nurses Association, Arkansas Nurses Association and the Southern Nurses Research Society.

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