IVCC nursing scholarship honors late alumna Kathy Dungan

Prospective nursing students will have the opportunity to apply for a new scholarship after the friends and family of Kathy Dungan donated more than $20,000 to endow a scholarship in her memory.

Dungan, of Mendota, earned her associate degree in nursing in 1978 at Illinois Valley Community College before becoming a dedicated nurse at the University of Illinois at Chicago Hospital for more than 30 years, according to a news release.

Dungan lived in Elmhurst for 40 years but maintained a strong connection to her roots and to the college that helped launch her career in health care, according to the release. She died in December.

The Kathy Dungan Memorial Nursing Scholarship is intended to honor Dungan, who made a lasting impact in her field and in the lives of those she served, as well as to inspire and support future nursing students, according to the release.

“When she was 15, Kathy rode her bike to a local nursing home and asked for a job because she wanted to be a nurse,” her husband, Otis, said in the release. “My wife was born to care for others and spent her life doing just that. She was an incredible nurse, friend, mother, wife and grandmother. We hope this scholarship will help a student currently working in the medical field who wants to attend IVCC to further their career. Kathy would have loved knowing that she would be helping so many students follow her path.”

For information about IVCC’s array of scholarship opportunities and creating new scholarships or contributing to existing ones, visit the IVCC Foundation webpage at ivcc.edu/givetoivcc or call Tracy Beattie, executive director of the foundation, at 815-224-0550.