UAMS’ Claudia Beverly, Ph.D., First Recipient of Murphy Chair

By todd

LITTLE ROCK – Claudia J. Beverly, Ph.D., R.N., today became the inaugural recipient of the Murphy Chair in Rural Aging Leadership and Policy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).


The endowment establishing the chair came from Martha W. Murphy, a member of UAMS’ Foundation Fund Board and Advisory Board of the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. The chair will support efforts to address the needs of an aging society and to influence policy so that the most appropriate system of care is made available to Arkansans.


Beverly, a Stuttgart native and a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, is director of UAMS’ Arkansas Aging Initiative, where she has overseen the establishment of seven satellite centers on aging around the state. She is also director of the John A. Hartford Foundation for Geriatric Nursing Excellence, and associate director of the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging.


“Claudia Beverly has devoted an exemplary career to improving the health and welfare of older Arkansans, and her visionary direction of the Arkansas Aging Initiative greatly benefits our aging population,” UAMS Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson, M.D., said. “She is an excellent choice to fill the Murphy Chair in Rural Aging Leadership and Policy.”


Wilson also thanked Murphy, who he said has worked tirelessly to help UAMS achieve its mission of outreach, particularly for the elderly who live far from Little Rock and UAMS’ main campus.


“Martha Murphy was the inspiration and the driving force behind the successful effort to establish a satellite center on aging in El Dorado in 2001, which, with Dr. Beverly’s help, became the template for other centers on aging,” Wilson said. “Now, her gift will strengthen outreach programs developed through the Arkansas Aging Initiative.”


Beverly’s career is filled with awards for her work as a nurse, researcher and nurse educator. She discovered her passion for helping older patients after joining the UAMS College of Nursing faculty in 1976, where she continued to expand her knowledge and expertise and was devoted to improving the care of older adults in the community.


In the early 1980s she established geriatric clinics in high rise apartments in North Little Rock, an effort that was later recognized and funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Beverly also became instrumental in establishing the $28.8 million Reynolds Institute on Aging and Department of Geriatrics. She led the development of the Arkansas Aging Initiative, funded by Arkansas’ share of the national tobacco settlement agreement, and since 1999 has overseen the creation of seven rural centers on aging throughout Arkansas.


Beverly’s advocacy also has taken her to the state and national policy arena. In 2002, she gave expert testimony to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Aging about the geriatric work force. She has successfully led efforts to get licensure and prescriptive authority for advanced practice nurses in Arkansas and served on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice, the Hartford Foundation’s expert panel on Geriatric Advanced Practice Nursing, the National Commission on Nursing Workforce for Long-Term Care, and other councils. She also is a founding member of the Arkansas Coalition for Nursing Home Excellence.


UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center, five centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has about 2,320 students and 690 medical residents. It is one of the state’s largest public employers with almost 9,000 employees, including nearly 1,000 physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the VA Medical Center. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of $4.3 billion a year.