PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Dr. Josie L. Veal, Grad ’12
Milwaukee, Wis.
Dr. Josie Veal has her sights set on success. She’s the public health officer at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) where she works tirelessly to champion an environment for her school’s community where everyone can feel safe and aims to implement policy change, ensuring health equity for people of color.
Josie merges her nursing expertise and plethora of research knowledge to guide MATC to safety every day. The daily experience of COVID at colleges and universities is always changing, and Josie has had to collaborate with her internal and external community partners to build out long term plans to ensure that students can continue pursing coursework during the pandemic.
In her spare time Josie prioritizes her role as a board member for New Beginnings Are Possible. The youth organization amplifies purpose and empowers Milwaukee kids to make dreams a reality. Just this summer she participated in a community vegetable garden clean up and crafted mosaic art for wooden banisters in the center. “Being a part of this community center affirms my belief that sharing my God given talents with others, is a way to replenish or nurture our community,” she said.
She credits the Marquette University’s Educational Opportunity Program’s (EOP) Upward Bound program that she attended during high school, for providing the education, tutoring and mentoring, which were the building blocks for pursuing her dream of attending college to become a nurse. She later returned to campus as a graduate student to receive her doctoral degree from Marquette. “To study at Marquette as a graduate student and walk the campus again, was understanding the power of my footprint” she said.
Name someone (past or present) with whom you'd like to have dinner.
I would have loved to meet and share a meal with Mary W. Jackson, NASA’s first female African American Engineer.
What is one of your favorite Marquette memories?
One of my favorite memories was the time spent in the Ph.D. study room in Clark Hall. While studying did occur, it was the laughs, stories shared and meals among students that make this room memorable.
Leave a congratulatory message for Josie!