Jan Wolvin: Love of Nursing Combined With Philanthropic Family Tradition Build Better Healthcare for Rural Communities
Jan Wolvin, pictured with her husband, is ensuring that rural healthcare is secure by including FLC in her estate plan.
Jan Wolvin, nurse practitioner, and her daughter, a Fort Lewis College alumna and now a psychiatric nurse practitioner, both navigated the difficulties of obtaining nursing education in rural communities. After learning of FLC’s establishment of a collaborative BSN program with her alma mater, CU Anschutz, Jan created the Lee and Maxine Mathews Scholarship Endowment in 2022 to illustrate her and her family’s belief in the importance of education to positively change Colorado’s rural healthcare. The endowment will support students enrolled in the Nursing Collaborative program at FLC in partnership with CU Anschutz. She included the FLC Foundation as an IRA beneficiary in her estate plan to grow the scholarship endowment.
Jan created the Lee and Maxine Mathews Scholarship Endowment to support nursing students.
“Creating this endowment allows me to give back to a profession that provided me so much fulfillment and opportunity,” Jan says. “Nursing degrees can open so many doors.”
Jan named the endowment in honor of her father, Lee, and mother, Maxine “Mickie,” a Cadet Nurse Corps graduate. Mickie was a classmate of Madeleine Leininger, founder of Culture Care Theory, which operates on the belief that clients receive more effective care when that care is congruent with the client’s worldview and way of life. Like Mickie, Jan and her daughter apply the Culture Care Theory in their nursing professions.
Jan’s parents, Lee and Maxine “Mickie” Mathews (pictured here in her nursing school graduation photo), were her philanthropic role models. Jan is following in their footsteps by including the FLC Foundation in her estate plan and establishing an endowed scholarship in their name.
Throughout their lifetimes, Jan’s parents modeled philanthropic beliefs by giving generously to many causes, including education. Jan is proud to carry on the values her parents instilled in her and looks forward to supporting the growth of the nursing profession through FLC’s Nursing Collaborative. Jan hopes the scholarship fund will create career pathways for students and inspire them to reinvest in their local communities following graduation, leading to a vibrant workforce across the region and beyond.
“When I think about this nursing program, I am simply excited, excited, excited. That may seem an overused word, but I honestly just cannot wait to see this first class of future nurses begin.” FLC will welcome the first cohort of pre-nursing students in fall 2023.
There are many powerful ways to deepen FLC’s imprint on the community, region and world for all who feel called to do so, and your estate plan is the best place to start. Contact Dave Kerns ’03 at 970-247-7427 or kerns_d@fortlewis.edu to learn how you can make an impact not just now, but in the future.