2022 Archie M. Griffin Professional Achievement Award
Marie L. Lobo, PhD
Marie Lobo’s pioneering work in nursing education and her commitment to mentoring are at the heart of her desire to help others find joy in nursing while honoring those who helped her succeed.
Her 50-year nursing career includes four decades as a nurse educator helping to develop the first PhD programs in nursing at several universities, working on community health programs for children and mentoring hundreds of nursing students and faculty. Lobo ’71, has been named a Nursing Legend by the New Mexico Center for Nursing Excellence and an Alumni Transformer in Nursing and Health Care by Ohio State.
The first in her family to attend college, Lobo says her struggles early on at Ohio State are what led her to seek out mentors, including one who pointed her toward a nursing career.
After graduating, she worked as a pediatric hospital nurse before deciding she wanted to teach nursing. That meant going back to school. “It was the 1970s, a time when very few universities offered advanced nursing programs,” she says. Lobo enrolled in the University of Washington in 1974 and received a Masters of Nursing in Maternal Child Health. In 1978 she returned to the University of Washington as a member of the first cohort of the new PhD in Nursing Science program.
“By far, her greatest legacy as a forward-thinking health care professional are the thousands of nursing students and the many nursing faculty whose learning and skill development over time offer proof of her effectiveness.”
Upon earning her doctorate, Lobo blazed her own trail, helping to develop the first doctoral program in nursing for the Medical University of South Carolina. She next took her talents to the University of New Mexico. The predominantly rural and frontier state provided unique challenges, so Lobo and colleagues developed the first online PhD courses in nursing. “I had a student tell me, ‘I might have trouble coming to class in the winter because I have to go over the Continental Divide to get here.’ I wanted to respond to students’ needs.”
Lobo also mentored many students throughout her career and continues to do so during her retirement. “I see mentoring as a way to influence the future. I think faculty need to be there for students; you need to make yourself available, and that may mean evenings and weekends.”
There is just one caveat: No calls on Saturdays if Ohio State is playing. Lobo is either busy watching the football game at a local bar with the Ohio State Alumni Club of New Mexico, or she is at home cheering on the team with her three-legged rescue dog, Brutus, by her side.
Awarded to alumni who have superb records of distinguished career accomplishments and who have made outstanding contributions to their professions.