Rocco and Roxanne Martino

$2.5 million gift will help build a more diverse pipeline of nurses

A $2.5 million gift from Rocco and Roxanne Martino in 2023 will provide additional funding for graduates of Loyola’s Arrupe College who pursue Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees at the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing. Those students will be known as Martino Scholars.

Arrupe is a two-year program that provides a path to an associate’s degree for students who face hurdles paying for and succeeding in college. Many are first-generation students, are academically unprepared for college, and are from under-represented communities.

“Roxanne and I believe deeply in the power of education to improve lives. We’re first-generation college graduates who received a lot of help along the way,” says Rocco Martino (MBA ’78), a Loyola trustee since 2015. “We’re grateful that we can help these students receive an education and training, achieve a degree, and fulfill their aspirations. And—we hope—go on to improve Chicago.”

The Martinos’ philanthropy will help fund financial aid and support services for Arrupe-to-BSN students, helping Loyola Nursing move closer toward its goal of building a more diverse pipeline of nurses. Having nurses of color treat patients of color has been shown to improve health outcomes.

The couple’s gift has the power to expand and improve the futures of the Martino Scholars and strengthen the Chicagoland communities where many are likely to live and work after completing their degrees.

Dean Lorna Finnegan says the Martinos have made an important commitment to students who could one day help reduce health inequities in Chicago.

“This generous gift from the Martinos will help create educational access for our talented students of high need,” she says. “The gift will have profound impacts on our students, their families, and communities for generations to come, and we are deeply grateful for the opportunity to support students to reach their full potential.”

Barbara Brodie

Nursing pioneer's gift reflects her commitment to teaching 

In her commencement address to the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing Class of 2010, alumna Barbara Brodie—already regarded as a “living legend” within the nursing profession—delivered a compelling message: Treat your patients with dignity, no matter their background.

“Dignity…signifies the human worth of an individual in the eyes of others and in their own estimation of who they are,” said Brodie, a 1957 graduate of Loyola’s baccalaureate program. “Dignity is essential to our very being and enables us to face the world and maintain our place within it.”

That emphasis on the inherent worth of each person— instilled as Brodie cared for the poorest of Chicago’s poor during her clinicals—guided her throughout her career as a leading nurse practitioner, historian, and educator.

While Brodie spent decades at the University of Virginia, she maintained close ties to her alma mater until her death in February 2023. She left a large gift to Loyola Nursing—one colleagues say reflects her commitment to teaching the next generation, and to the school’s guiding principle of service to others.

“Barbara valued her undergraduate education at Loyola and always spoke enthusiastically about Loyola whenever she had the opportunity,” says Karen Egenes, Loyola Nursing associate professor emerita. “She said it was important for undergraduates to absolutely love their school and stay attached to it, because it gave them their foundation in nursing.”

Brodie was a pioneer in the nurse practitioner movement, a mission inspired by her work with under-resourced patients—particularly children—at Cook County Hospital during her clinicals and early career.

“She was one of the first people who saw pediatric nurse practitioners as a way to bring health care access to lower-income groups,” Egenes says.

But Brodie, who was named a “Living Legend” by the American Academy of Nursing in 2009 and received Loyola Nursing's Damen Award in 2014 for leadership and service to others, is best known for her work in nursing history. She founded the American Association for the History of Nursing and urged schools to make the profession’s history a standard part of nursing school curricula.

“She said that the same issues in health care keep reemerging, and we have to learn from approaches used in the past if we want to move forward,” Egenes says. “She believed that the issues nurses identify and deal with over time are the ones that end up shaping health care policy.”

Helen (Sundall) Goyer

Scholarship honors tenacity and grit of 'health care hero'

One of 11 children born to impoverished Norwegian immigrants, Helen Sundall moved to Chicago as a teenager to escape a bleak future on her family’s Wisconsin farm.

Bright and hardworking, she graduated in 1923 from nursing school and launched her career at the Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium—putting her life on the line to care for contagious patients with an often deadly lung disease.

“She was a health care hero,” says her granddaughter, Carol Sullivan, a registered nurse who holds an MBA from the Quinlan School of Business. “She put herself at risk to help others and she knew what the consequences could be.”

Later married and adopting the last name of Goyer, the TB nurse’s family is honoring her legacy as a frontline health care provider with the establishment of the Helen (Sundall) Goyer RN Memorial Scholarship to support first-generation nursing students. The fund also marks the 100th anniversary of her graduation from St. Anne’s School of Nursing, one of several hospital nursing schools that merged with Loyola in 1935 to become the first collegiate nursing program in Illinois.

The scholarship was made possible thanks to Goyer’s late daughter and son-in-law, Mary Esther and George Baskys, who had no children but bequeathed an inheritance to their many nieces and nephews. A number of Goyer’s descendants have contributed to the fund, which the family sees as a tribute to her compassion and resiliency.

Several family members likened Goyer’s courageous decision to treat TB patients to the work of nurses nearly 100 years later in COVID wards. Helen Goyer and her husband, Leo Goyer, a TB patient who lost a lung to the disease, paid a steep price for that choice: She eventually developed full-blown TB and spent two years in a treatment facility.

Her confinement splintered her young family, forcing the Goyers to send their five children—including one with Down syndrome who required full-time care—to live with relatives or in institutions for several years.

“It was tough,” says her daughter, Leona Rudolph. She remembered her mother, who died in the 1980s, as someone who personified the best of nursing: “She was compassionate, patient, and understanding. We were so proud of her.”

The scholarship honors Goyer’s tenacity and grit as a first-generation student. It also recognizes Loyola’s impact on generations of the Goyer clan, several of whom attended the university.

“Loyola made a huge difference in my family’s trajectory,” says the Goyers’ grandson, Jim Rudolph, a Stritch School of Medicine graduate. He said Helen Goyer likely received financial assistance to attend nursing school, and her family wants to extend a helping hand to other aspiring nurses who lack the resources to attend college.

“We know what a difference obtaining an education and having a stable career can make to future generations,” he says. “That’s the motivation behind this scholarship—to augment someone’s journey.”