Investiture ceremony honors two faculty members
Overview of honors
Two UIC College of Nursing faculty members — Sarah Abboud, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Krista Jones, DNP ’11, MSN ’07, RN, PHNA-BC, FNAP, FAAN — were formally seated in their endowed faculty positions at an investiture ceremony on April 7.
- Abboud, an associate professor in the Department of Human Development Nursing Science, was invested as the Helen K. Grace Faculty Scholar.
- Jones, a clinical professor in the Department of Population Health Nursing Science and director of the UIC Nursing Urbana campus, was invested as the Jean C. Stout Faculty Scholar.
UIC Nursing Dean Eileen Collins and UIC Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Robert Barish presided over the ceremony, which took place in UIC Nursing’s Third Floor Event Center at the Chicago campus. Family, friends and colleagues of Abboud and Jones filled the room, alongside individuals representing the Grace and Stout families.
The Grace and Stout Faculty Scholars are among seven endowed faculty positions, which represent the highest honors awarded to faculty at UIC Nursing.
“Endowed faculty positions are only possible through the generosity of visionary donors like Helen Grace and Jean Stout,” Barish said. “Their gifts profess their belief in both the legacy of excellence here at UIC Nursing and the promise of further accomplishments.”
Sarah Abboud: Helen K. Grace Faculty Scholar
Helen Grace, who led UIC Nursing as its fourth dean from 1977 to 1982, established the Helen K. Grace Endowed Faculty Scholar in 2012 to support the work of an exceptional faculty member. Grace died in August 2025 at age 90. Her daughter and grandsons were in attendance at the investiture.
Abboud was selected for the honor due to her “exceptional leadership and scholarship,” said Collins. She has been a faculty member at UIC Nursing since 2016, focused on developing evidence-based research programs and interventions to improve health outcomes among first- and second-generation Arab immigrants in the U.S.
“She is one of only a few Arab scholars around the world to study sexual health and violence, as well as mental health, at the intersections of immigration, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnic identity in the Arab-immigrant population,” Collins said.
Abboud has been a relentless advocate for re-classifying Arab Americans from “white” to “Middle Eastern and North African (MENA)” in data collection to better reflect their experience as a minority community. Thanks to her efforts, the NIH designated the MENA population as a health disparities population in 2023, and the Office of Management and Budget also added MENA as a category in 2024.
Mazen El Ghaziri, Abboud’s mentor, friend and an associate professor in the Solomont School of Nursing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, spoke about Abboud via videoconference.
“At its core, this recognition is about more than academic and scholarly excellence for an exceptional faculty member such as Sarah,” said El Ghaziri said. “It’s about her humanity, humanism, and the courage to stand up for what is right, even when it is difficult.”
Krista Jones: Jean C. Stout Faculty Scholar
The Jean C. Stout Faculty Scholar was funded in 2024 with a gift from the estate of Jean Stout. When Stout died in 2022, her friend, alumna Chris Whippo, MSN ’88, BSN ’73, was designated to manage Stout’s estate. Given Stout’s history of charitable giving to UIC Nursing, she said it was an easy decision to establish an endowed faculty position at UIC Nursing.
Collins called Jones the “indisputable choice” as the inaugural Stout scholar. In addition to her leadership on UIC Nursing’s Urbana campus, Jones’ research has been recognized with 27 grants totaling nearly $7 million.
A population health expert, Jones leads a multi-site team of nurses and librarians focused on the acquisition and application of evidence in practice for nurses and other health professionals. The team has received five phases of funding from the National Libraries of Medicine.
Jones has held numerous leadership positions in local, regional, and national nursing and public health organizations. These include current chair of the Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations (CPHNO), where she represents 190,000 nurses. She is the immediate past president of the Association of Community Health Nursing Educators (ACHNE), president of the Champaign County Board of Health and chair of the Illinois Nursing Workforce Center Board of Directors.
“Her influence is evident not only in her many accomplishments, but in the respect and trust she has earned among her colleagues over her more than 20 years of service,” said Teresa Krassa, clinical teaching associate professor and longtime colleague of Jones.
Jones said that nursing is her calling and teaching students is her passion.
“I would like to thank the nearly 1,500 students who have crossed my path during my time at UIC. Nursing,” Jones said. “The ability to have some semblance of impact on each and every one of them, that they pass on to the patients they care for, and their peers, is what this is all about.”