A true visionary, Dr. Ira Trail Adams foresaw today’s trends in nursing education and helped position The University of Tulsa to play an important role. As dean of TU’s School of Nursing (from 1977 until her retirement in 1991), she established TU’s master’s degree program in nursing. Under her leadership, the School of Nursing concentrated its academic focus on community health nursing, training a generation of professionals in this holistic approach to health care.

Dean Adams, who earned a doctorate in public health from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1971, came to TU after serving as the director of the Division of Nursing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and as chairman of the Department of Nursing at California State University.

In 1983, Dean Adams was one of six Oklahomans honored as “Women of the Year” by the Business and Professional Women’s Clubs of Oklahoma and the National Council on the Future of Women in the Workplace. She served on the boards of directors for a number of health agencies, including the Advisory Committee on Nursing Education, the Health Policy Study Advisory Committee, Oklahoma League of Nursing, and the Educational Advisory Committee to the Oklahoma Board of Nurse Registration and Nursing Education. She was also appointed to the Tulsa Alcoholism Advisory Committee by Tulsa Mayor James M. Inhofe.

Dean Adams retired from TU in 1991, and passed away on Tuesday, May 25, 1993. Her husband, the late Leo Adams, initiated the establishment of this scholarship as a way to honor the life and work of his wife. Many former students and colleagues also provided generous support to this namesake scholarship endowment fund, which will perpetually pay tribute to a gifted health care professional, leader, teacher, and friend.