Dr. Bernita K. Hamilton, a professor in the School of Nursing, has been awarded Troy University’s Wallace D. Malone, Jr. Distinguished Faculty Award.
Dr. Hamilton was presented the award by Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., Chancellor, and Dr. Lance Tatum, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, during the University’s annual Faculty/Staff Convocation on Friday at the Troy Campus.
The award consists of a $1,500 cash prize and a medallion to be worn with academic regalia. The award is made possible through a $100,000 endowment by the SouthTrust Corporation. Wallace Malone, former chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of SouthTrust, served as a TROY trustee from 1975-1995.
“Dr. Hamilton is an excellent role model and has been described as her peers as being a mentor to both students and faculty,” Dr. Tatum said. “She is an outstanding educator and scholar as evidenced through her research and publications, as well as her participation on numerous state boards and organizations. We are pleased to recognize her as the recipient of the 2019 Wallace D. Malone, Jr. Distinguished Faculty Award.”
For Dr. Hamilton, receiving the award was not only a tremendous honor but also extremely humbling.
“Receiving the 2019 Wallace D. Malone Distinguished Faculty Award is truly an honor,” she said. “I am very blessed to belong to a community of dedicated faculty at Troy University who share a vision and commitment for excellence in teaching, service and scholarship. Being recognized as a contributing member of this esteemed group of faculty is most humbling.”
Dr. Hamilton has served to stints as a member of the Troy University faculty, first from 1984 to 1991 and then returning in 2002. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and her Ph.D. from the Medical College of Georgia.
Dr. Hamilton has served on the board of the Alabama Department of Public Health’s Office of Women’s Health since 2013, has been a peer evaluator for the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing since 2003, and has been a member of the Institutional Review Board for the Southeast Alabama Medical Center since 2008. She was a Sigma Theta Tau International Chiron Mentor in 2005 and a Troy University Chancellor’s Fellow in 2008.
Dr. Hamilton has numerous publications and presentations to her credit. Her research has been published in scholarly journals such as The Journal for Nursing Practitioners, the Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal, the Journal of Community Health Nursing, the Journal of Adult Education, Pediatric Nursing and the International Journal of Body Fat Composition. Her research has included surveys on health risk behaviors of high school students in Pike County and health behaviors of Pike County elementary and middle school students.
Dr. Hamilton also has been an active grant-writing, participating in successful grant projects, such as “Healthy Schools, Healthy Kids,” “Creating a Diverse Nursing Workforce through Learning and Practice Communities,” “Case Management in Baccalaureate Education,” and “Computerized Simulators for Undergraduate Nursing Education.”
