IU School of Nursing

What began as a simple request to honor a nursing leader has blossomed into a lasting legacy of philanthropy at the IU School of Nursing. For Sonna Merk, PhD, RN, one of the school’s most generous supporters, there is no cause closer to her heart.

Merk is a three-time graduate of the School of Nursing, having earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD before leading a long and successful career in nursing administration. Prior to her retirement in 2000, she served as senior vice president of Nursing and Patient Care Services and chief nursing officer at IU Health.

Her first significant gift to the school came when Angela McBride, PhD, dean of the IU School of Nursing from 1991 to 2003, invited her to contribute $10,000 to honor Emily Holmquist, the school’s first dean (1957–1973).

“That was my first foray into philanthropy, and I gave her $10,000 over five years,” Merk recalled.

“You support the causes that are important to you, and you support them with money and/or time,” she continued. “And so, I ended up giving more money to the school, and the school has been really good to me.”

The list of Merk’s contributions to the nursing community in Indiana is extensive. She was a founding member of Nursing 2000—a collaboration between nursing education and practice formed to ensure the future of Indiana’s nursing workforce. She has been honored with the Bicentennial Award Alumni distinction and was among the first recipients of the IU School of Nursing’s Alumni Legacy Leaders Award. While serving as associate dean for Practice at the IU School of Nursing in the late 1980s, Merk also worked with the dean to secure high-priority clinical placements at IU Hospitals.

Merk is quick to point out that she has been the beneficiary of generosity, too. When she worked at IU Hospital, the hospital system covered her tuition for graduate school, relieving her of the financial burden of educational expenses and paving the way for her remarkable career.

“I did my master’s and my PhD while I was working,” she said. “I went to class in the evenings and that was always supported both by the school and my work. The hospital was supporting people to go back for their advanced degrees, so that made it even easier. I never paid a dime for my master’s or my PhD, so it was an important thing to give back.”

Following her initial gift to the Holmquist fund, Merk and her husband, Donald, have since developed several significant annual scholarship and lectureship funds to support school initiatives.

First, the Donald and Sonna Merk RISE Scholarship is dedicated to undergraduate nursing students in Indianapolis who participate in research, international learning experiences, service learning, or experiential learning (RISE). Also, the Sonna Ehrlich Merk Distinguished Lectureship, established in 2000, supports joint lectures for nurses of IU Health and the School of Nursing. Lectures focus on topics such as nursing administration, workforce development, outcomes research, operating room nursing, and critical care. The third, Mary Anne and Frank C. Springer Jr Nursing Scholarship was named in honor of Merk’s parents and supports eligible undergraduate students on the Bloomington campus.

In addition to these gifts, the Merks have also committed a generous bequest to the School of Nursing in their estate plans to fund a $500,000 professorship in nursing leadership.

The couple’s philanthropy, however, is not limited to the School of Nursing. Donald Merk, an alum of IU’s Kelley School of Business, generously supports his interests in the arts and has established endowed scholarships with the Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington and is a major donor to the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art.

“We both had good careers, and I would say that our careers were a result of the education that we began at IU, so we are grateful and can’t think of a better place to give our money,” Merk said.

When asked what message she’d like to offer current nursing students who will soon join the ranks of IU alumni and become the next generation of this country’s nursing community, Merk gave words of motivation.

“I would encourage people to treat their nursing education as a career, not as a job,” she said. “I would encourage them to think about how they can be involved in and benefit the nursing community more than just what they do every day, either by participating on boards or being active in the alumni association.

“And also consider philanthropy because it is a big part of how these schools thrive and attain more than the ordinary.”