Featured Testimonial About Creighton University
For me and my fellow Harper scholars and students who are receiving other scholarships, donors are showing us that they trust us to lead with empathy. In advocating for us, they’re also advocating for every patient we care for.
By Micah Mertes
Adrian Martinez, Class of 2028, is the kind of student nursing schools are competing for — exemplary GPA, leadership experience, a compelling story. Martinez received offers from other schools (including one full-ride scholarship). In the end, a prestigious new scholarship brought him to Creighton.
Martinez is one of the first recipients of the Harper Nursing Scholarship, a nearly full-tuition program established with a $5.2 million gift from the Harper Family Foundation.
“Besides the amazing scholarship, I also knew that Creighton-educated healthcare providers have a great reputation,” Martinez says. “The Rachel and CL Werner Center for Health Sciences Education was a huge factor in my decision, too.”
Through hands-on experiences and curriculum, Harper Scholars like Martinez focus on one of four pillars while earning their nursing degree: advocacy, research, service and justice, or leadership.
“I’m taking the leadership track because I not only want to care for patients but also advocate for nurses. As a Harper Scholar, I’m taking every opportunity to grow as a future nurse and nursing leader.” (Martinez is the vice president of Creighton’s Nurses Association. He hopes to one day return to Creighton to earn a doctorate in nursing leadership.)
Martinez chose to pursue this path because of the impact nurses have had on his own life. As a child, he was continually hospitalized due to complications from kidney disease, and, more than anyone else, it was his nurses who guided him and his family through the worst of it.
“You always remember the faces of the people who get you through the hard stuff. I want to be one of those faces, one of those advocates.”
Martinez says the Harper Scholarship is itself an invaluable form of advocacy.
“For me and my fellow Harper scholars and students who are receiving other scholarships, donors are showing us that they trust us to lead with empathy. In advocating for us, they’re also advocating for every patient we care for.”
