UA gift benefits nursing

FAYETTEVILLE — New nursing scholarships at the University of Arkansas will be established through a gift from a former UA math instructor whose disabled husband — a longtime professor at the university — received care from nursing students before he died in 2013.

Ann Marie Ziegler’s husband, Joe Ziegler, an economics professor for 40 years, was left without the use of his legs and almost no use of his arms after a 2008 bicycling accident, she said. Joe Ziegler died at age 67.

Her $250,000 planned gift includes the establishment of three scholarships in the name of former UA undergraduate students who helped care for her husband: the Theresa Rickert Endowed Nursing Scholarship, the Meredith Warner Endowed Nursing Scholarship and the Kristen Coleman Endowed Nursing Scholarship.

Each award will be established with gifts of $80,000 from Ziegler, who said she has named UA the beneficiary of a life insurance policy. The policy was

originally taken out to help pay for her husband’s care in case she died, she said.

Ziegler said she hired the students at different times to help out one or two hours on weekends with her husband’s nightly care routine. As the students spent time in the couple’s Fayetteville home, she and her husband came to know the caregivers, Ziegler said.

“He loved having them come and visit him,” she said, chuckling at how the students sometimes brought friends over before a weekend night out. The visitors might arrive “even dressed in heels and the whole bit,” Ziegler said.

One of the students, Warner, was hired to do summer work. Ziegler said Warner spent time with Joe Ziegler looking over old pictures and listening to stories.

“It was great for him,” she said, adding she also is making her gift to UA in appreciation for the university’s response after her husband’s injury. “The university was just wonderful to my husband after his accident.”

Ziegler said she sent a text message to the former nursing students letting them know of her plans. In announcing the gift Friday, UA stated all three now work as registered nurses.

The Coleman award will go to a nursing student with financial need who has one or more dependent children, as Coleman moved to Arkansas in 2009 with two children before enrolling in 2011 in UA’s nursing program.

“I knew Ann Marie wanted to do something, but I was surprised when I learned about the scholarship,” Coleman said in a statement. “I’m very honored. I feel like I was meaningful to them — just as they were to me.”

The other former students, in statements released by UA, also said they were surprised at the scholarships to be named after them.

“It was unexpected, although I know how much the Zieglers have always loved the university,” Rickert said.

Warner said she remembered the family as “very wonderful, welcoming people,” adding that she “learned a lot about life from Joe Ziegler.”

A gift of $ 10,000 from Ziegler will also establish the Dr. Joseph A. Ziegler Experimental Economics Excellence Fund to support research. Donations from friends and family in 2013 established two endowed student awards totaling $50,000 in honor of Joe Ziegler.