Spring 07
Vol. 14/ No. 12

More than 50 individuals came together to buy the top left row of auditorium seats in honor of Jerry Griffith. If you read the inscriptions from left to right, you will read the story of Jerry's life and the influence his positive attitude had on those in his life.

Academic Advisor

Coach & Mentor

Historian

Humorist & Storyteller

Veteran & Hero

Friend & Co-Worker

Son-Parent-Grandpa

“Wonderful, Just Wonderful!”

In fond memory of Jerry Griffith by Otto Kiepe, BSN '05

Jerry Griffith, MA ,Cancer Survivor Extraordinaire

For Jerry with Love

For Jerry with Love — Accelerated Class '04

Jerry Griffith “My Friend”

Renovating the School's largest auditorium started with a unique fund-raising campaign created by the director of development and carried through by a dean brave enough to believe in her vision.

Ah… Wisdom Abby (sitting) and Heather (leaning) Smith are excited to find the inscription their father wrote to his daughter's Heather and Emily as they experience nursing school 27 years after their mother, Ursula, graduated. “Ah… The beginning of wisdom. Seek it & it will find you. ~ Dad”

With the image of Dean Porter lassoing and pulling out the orange auditorium seat, alums identified with the need to update this learning space.

“You believed in our vision of renovating an auditorium where nursing students spend many hours. Here is where they learn the knowledge necessary to become a Mizzou nurse,” Dean Rose Porter says. “This room desperately needed a new look and updated technology essential for teaching and learning to thrive.”

That is what the Take-A-Seat campaign was about — inspiring future generations of nursing students by honoring those we love and respect.

When students and visitors enter the Ann Crowe Essig Nursing Auditorium, we want them to find inspiration in the individual and collective memory of those engraved upon the chairs.

“Today's Mizzou nursing students sit in the shade of trees of learning planted long ago by past faculty and cultivated by the present professors,” says Dr. LeRoy Essig, naming benefactor and husband of Ann Crowe Essig. “These same nursing students also sit under the boughs of a great nursing tradition of so many alumni who have given back to their school by achievement and philanthropy as witnessed by the names on these new seats.”

Seats were dedicated to grandmothers who taught in one-room school houses who would have been amazed at today's technology; grandchildren who aren't in school yet, but will one day appreciate the value of a college degree; mothers and fathers who inspired their children to dream and then taught them how to achieve those dreams; and favorite instructors, although tough and demanding, who taught generation of students how to be the best possible nurses.

Ann Essig's sons, Roy, Michael and Patrick, and her husband, LeRoy, proudly stand outside the auditorium which now bears Ann's name. “I thank you for allowing my wife to be a part of this planting whose shade will comfort nursing students for years to come,” Dr. Essig says.

There are seats dedicated to love found at Mizzou, lifetime friendships and mentors, and classes that formed a bond outside their classroom experiences who encourage future classes to achieve that goal of becoming a Mizzou nurse.

“With the ribbon cutting,” Dean Porter says, “we are remembering Ann Crowe Essig in more than name only. We are remembering the spirit of everything she embodied – hope, kindness and love. Of which is evident by the gift made by Dr. Essig and his family. Their generosity surrounds every seat and technology gift with the beautiful elements seen in this lovely new learning environment.”