Fall 2013 Retirements

Eva Jerome, Bronson School of Nursing

Farewell and best wishes to Eva Jerome, M.S., R.N, who retired from the faculty of the Bronson School of Nursing on Dec. 31, 2013 after 13 years of dedicated service. Student success was always at the forefront of Jerome's concerns. Through her own actions and example, she instilled in students the true meaning of professionalism, integrity, diversity, honesty and—most of all—caring. 

Jerome obtained tenure at WMU as a master faculty specialist. She received certification in critical care nursing and advanced holistic nursing, and was highly instrumental in obtaining endorsement from the American Holistic Nursing Certification Corporation for Holistic Nursing for the Bronson School of Nursing's undergraduate program. This endorsement enables graduates to be exempt from prerequisites should they choose to sit for the National Certification Examination in Holistic Nursing.

Aside from her assigned work load, Jerome was active in mentorship and leadership through committee work and community service. She will be missed, but her influence will remain at the school and in the lives and work of many former students who are now practicing nurses.

Dave Guth, Department of Blindness and Low Vision Studies

The Department if Blindness and Low Vision Studies said farewell to Dr. Dave Guth, who retired at the end of 2013 as professor emeritus after 25 years of service there. Guth has researched and published extensively in his areas of interest, which include non-visual perception, the non-visual control of locomotion, the spatial orientation and pedestrian safety of blind persons, and intersection design as it relates to pedestrian safety and efficiency. Dave is also the former director of the department's Master's in Orientation and Mobility for Adults and taught several of that program's core courses.

Within the Department of Blindness and Low Vision Studies, Guth authored and worked closely on many federally funded projects with colleagues including Professors Richard Long and Rob Wall Emerson, Associate Professor Dae Kim, and Professor Emeritus Paul Ponchillia. Over the past 12 years, much of his work involved experiments conducted by the department-led interdisciplinary Bioengineering Research Partnership funded by the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The goal of that multifaceted project was to understand and determine solutions to the challenges that people with blindness have in complex travel situations, with a focus on access to complex intersections and challenging street crossings.

 

In addition, he served in several consulting and grant reviewing roles and—with Professor Emeritus John Gesink of WMU's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering—invented and patented a learning and assessment aid for severely visually impaired individuals.