By: Erik Pedersen, Senior Communications Manager

BALTIMORE – A pair of Notre Dame of Maryland University School of Nursing faculty members were recently recognized by the Maryland Higher Education Commission for excellence in the profession.

Dr. Mary Packard earned a Nurse Faculty Annual Recognition (NFAR) award, while Lyndsay Wright ’19, M’22 was selected for the New Nursing Faculty Fellowship. Both honors are supported through funding provided by Maryland’s Nurse Support Program II, an initiative which focuses on expanding the capacity to educate nurses through increasing faculty and strengthening nursing education programs at state institutions.

NFAR recipients were selected based on excellence demonstrated in five categories: excellence in teaching, impact on students, engagement in the nursing program and employment institution, innovation in education and technology, and contributions to nursing education. Dr. Packard, an associate professor who has worked at NDMU since 2008, has been a vital member and leader in the School of Nursing throughout her tenure. She played a key role in the introduction of caring science as a philosophical framework in the School of Nursing, she chairs the school’s Curriculum Committee, and she developed and implemented NDMU’s Master of Science – Leadership in Nursing Education program.

Dr. Packard has also accompanied students to the United Nations Commission of Women on several occasions over the past decade, and she has traveled with multiple groups of nursing students for short-term study abroad experiences in Haiti.

The New Nursing Faculty Fellowship supports newly hired faculty in Maryland nursing programs, increasing the state’s academic capacity to educate nurses. Wright, an assistant professor, joined the School of Nursing in a full-time capacity last August after previously working as a part-time clinical lab assistant during the 2021-22 academic year.

Wright worked as a medical-surgical nurse at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center in Baltimore while completing her master’s in Leadership in Nursing Education, and she continues to assist in a part-time capacity at the hospital now. Wright was recognized as MedStar’s 2022 Nurse of the Year last May, and she was the recipient of NDMU’s Regina Russo Hammel '41 Outstanding Recent Graduate Award during Alumnae and Alumni Weekend in September.

Established in 1895, Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU) is a private, Catholic institution in Baltimore, Maryland, with the mission to educate leaders to transform the world. Notre Dame has been named one of the best "Regional Universities North" by U.S. News & World Report.