Dr. Elizabeth NeSmith and Mother Create Nursing PhD Scholarship

A 1952 article in The Augusta Chronicle described the late Marguerite Stark Stelling as a “person of vivid personality and charm.” Stelling had just been named Georgia’s most outstanding clubwoman, for her work with the Junior Women’s Clubs of Georgia.

This accomplishment is one of many that inspired Stelling’s granddaughter and daughter, Dr. Elizabeth NeSmith and Martha Hawkins, respectively, to establish the Stelling Leadership Award as a planned gift to honor Stelling and support promising nursing PhD students.

This blended gift will support their scholarship in perpetuity and will be funded annually until the planned gift is realized through their estates.

“I wanted to acknowledge the female legacy of leadership,” NeSmith explained. “She (Stelling) was such an inspiration for me…and she mentored me, so I wanted to tell her story and have others be inspired by her, too.”

A leading lady in her own right, NeSmith is a three-time Augusta University alumna earning an RN, MSN and PhD. She serves the Augusta University College of Nursing as chair and professor of the Department of Nursing Science and director of the Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing program.

NeSmith, alongside her mother and sister, presented the inaugural Stelling Leadership Award in November 2022 and plans to do so every year for the foreseeable future. She sees it as a way for three generations of female leaders to encourage and assist future leaders in nursing.

“I think this was the perfect time to be able to do this as we are trying to grow our College of Nursing footprint and move beyond our community and our nurse scientists program,” said NeSmith enthusiastically. “This was a way to be able to do that and to honor my grandmother, because I feel like she’s doing it with me, alongside me, through this work."