For more than 28 years, Jeanne Sewell did what she loved most, nursing and teaching others how to be a nurse. “You can be all that you want to be in nursing,” said Jeanne Sewell.
Prior to her retirement at Georgia College, Wayne and Jeanne Sewell established the Jeanne Penny Sewell Endowed Nursing Scholarship. “My husband and I both thought that it would be important to help another person become a nurse,” Sewell said.
The purpose of the scholarship was for nursing students, no matter their background and grade point average, to receive financial help. For Sewell, the most important aspect of nursing is helping people. “Grades don’t define you. It’s your dream. It’s your passion. You can do anything you want to do,” Sewell said.
But for Sewell nursing wasn’t just a passion; it was in her blood. She was raised in Columbus, Georgia in a home full of hardworking and dedicated nurses. She grew up watching her loved ones dedicate their careers to helping people through nursing. “I’ve always wanted to be a nurse since I could walk,” Sewell said.
Sewell became a nurse in 1969. She later met her late husband who was also a nurse. After that, Sewell moved to Milledgeville to be closer to her two sons. While in Milledgeville, the Dean of GC’s Nursing Department urged Sewell to apply for a teaching position. “It turned out that one of my old classmates was the dean and called me and asked me to apply,” Sewell said.
Sewell ended up devoting 28 years at Georgia College as a nursing professor before retiring. And she said her time invested at the college was so influential that she decided to create a scholarship to help nursing students have the best shot at living out their dreams.
And research on the benefits of scholarships for students supports Sewell’s desire to help aspiring nurses. Specifically, scholarships like Sewell’s have shown to positively impact students’ abilities to complete courses and graduate in a timely manner. Maddie Matthews knows firsthand how beneficial scholarships such as Sewell’s are to nursing students. “It is extremely challenging to hold down a job during nursing school,” Matthews said. Candler O’Neil, a nursing student, also agreed. “Nursing is a great major because you get real-world experience while you are still in college,” O’Neil said.
Both Matthews and O’Neil are extremely grateful for the financial support via scholarships towards their nursing school requirements including labs, fees, travel, etc. And like Sewell, Matthews and O’Neil are becoming nurses to help others.
But Sewell’s desire to help aspiring nurses doesn’t end with the scholarship. She also wrote a nursing textbook titled “Nursing and Informatics.”
“When I wrote my textbook, I used the blog to store ideas, to get ideas from others, and inspire others,” Sewell said. “I knew I needed to store information for budgeting reasons so when I came to Georgia College I already had the expertise."
Sewell’s blog has reached more than 300,000 followers. But now that she is moving forward in her life, she said she anticipates she will put the blog to sleep and focus on the next chapter, spending more time with her family and friends.
Pictured below:
Wayne & Jeanne Sewell
