The School of Nursing is proud to share that Professor and MacArthur Foundation Chair for Global Health Nursing Sally Rankin, RN, PhD, FAAN, and the Reverend William “Bill” Rankin, II, were honored with the Beyond Duke Service and Leadership Award for their Malawi health and education effort in October. Co-founded by Bill Rankin, the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) provides support, including nursing scholarships, to empower women in Malawi.
Sally Rankin has spent nearly two decades collaborating with her husband, Bill, through GAIA on numerous projects, including mentoring and training programs for nurses and nursing students. GAIA operates three programs, including the nursing scholarship program, which has funded the education of close to 450 nursing students. The organization works through it’s Villages Program to prevent the spread of disease and improve community health by empowering local women in villages to provide orphan care and education, home-based care for the ill, and other services.
The Rankins’ were presented with the Beyond Duke Service and Leadership Award in the Global Community category at Duke University and were highlighted in both the Duke Alumni and School of Nursing magazine. The Rankins were nominated for the Duke honor by Dr. Catherine Gilliss—a graduate of the UCSF School of Nursing, former Department Chair of Family Health Care Nursing, who then went on to lead both the Yale University and Duke University Schools of Nursing. To read more about the Rankins' significant contributions and work, see the full School of Nursing Alumni article by Bernadette Gillis here (pages 29-30). As summarized by Bill Rankin “We never did our work to obtain any recognition. We do it to prolong the lives of some patient and brave people.”