September 13, 2019

Four NEXTUniversity students awarded Healthcare Scholarships

Four NEXTUniversity students awarded Healthcare Scholarships.

From left to right: Rachel Garcia, Bethany Carrillo, Shimirimana Esperance, and Ashely Fisher

Abilene, Texas- With the kick-off of the 2019-2020 school year high school seniors look at their next steps after high school graduation. Holland Medical High School within Abilene Independent School District (AISD) provides their students the opportunity to graduate high school with healthcare-based certifications, such as a Certified Nursing Aide (CNA) certificate, giving their students an advantage.
Middle-skilled healthcare professions, such as nursing, are expected to add almost 70,000 to their labor force by the year 2020 for the State of Texas alone. Regionally, healthcare professions expect to have the best job growth adding over 1,200 jobs over the next 5 years, and there is an ever-growing demand locally for nurses, with over 150 nursing jobs currently available in Abilene. The Hedrick Medical Center (HMC) Auxiliary Board partners with NEXTUniversity to support the Abilene community’s healthcare workforce needs by providing scholarships.
Holland Medical High School, NEXTUniversity and Cisco College hosted a joint informational meeting about the new HMC Auxiliary Board Licensed Vocational Nursing (LVN) scholarship opportunity for students and their families. Unlike most scholarships, each HMC Auxiliary Board LVN scholarship aims to fund the complete cost of tuition, fees, books and supplies with a total award of $10,500 per student as they pursue their LVN at Cisco College.
The 2019 LVN scholarship award winners are: Bethany Carrillo, Shimirimana Esperance, Ashley Fisher and Rachel Garcia. These outstanding young ladies applied for the LVN scholarship through NEXTUniversity and completed a panel interview with representatives from Holland Medical High School, NEXTUniversity, and the Hendrick Auxiliary Board. Jennifer Seekins, Dean Holland Medical High School said, “This is a tremendous opportunity for these young ladies, and we are so excited for them! Thank you for providing these students with the funds to help them pursue their dreams.”
NEXTUniversity’s scholarship award winners are currently attending classes at Holland Medical High and Cisco College as they complete their pre-requisites for the Cisco LVN program this 2019-2020 school year. Scholarship award winners will then enter Cisco’s LVN Program fall 2020.
Scholarship award winner Rachel Garcia stated, “I want to be a nurse practitioner and I am honored to have been selected as a scholarship recipient.”
NEXTUniversity, a career development program of the Abilene Industrial Foundation (AIF) and housed within Abilene Education Foundation (AEF) works to empower the next workforce through scholarship dollars provided by the Development Corporation of Abilene. For more information about NEXTUniversity email: info@nextu.work

Development Corporation of Abilene is a proud recipient of the following recognition: