Ozarks Profile: DeLois Weekes

What is your job?

As the new president of the Cox College of Nursing and Health Sciences, DeLois Weekes, DNSC, RN, wants to "infect" the community with her "enthusiasm and passion for the college." Weekes said she hopes to "provide the leadership ... where students, staff and faculty can feel success and achieve their personal goals." She also wants to provide the leadership "to achieve the vision where students, faculty and staff can achieve ... individual goals as well as work together as a team to accomplish ... our vision, mission and goals of the college." Weekes plans to work to increase business and community awareness about the college to encourage those entities to join in the synergy and "to know what we're about ... and to engage them to help us make it happen." She also plans to maintain a "clear link with the Cox Health Systems as the college's affiliated partner."

Tell us about your organization:

The transition from the Burge School of Nursing at 1423 N. Jefferson to the new College of Nursing and Health Sciences began in 1995. Burge School of Nursing was a diploma program that began in 1907 and "had an outstanding reputation for excellence in high quality nursing education," Weekes said. After accreditation from the North Central Association, the college was able to grant baccalaureate degrees in nursing as a freestanding single-purpose college. It also grants associate degrees and subcontracts with Drury University for basic education courses that are taught at the college. Spruced up with a recent facelift, the college has more than 300 students enrolled, Weekes said. Besides nursing, it also offers a certificate program for medical transcription and in the fall will add a coding program. Coding has to be done by health-care providers in order to be paid by Medicare. The vision is to add a baccalaureate in health sciences in three to five years, she said. Allied education, such as radiology and microbiology, are in the future, as is a larger campus as part of Cox South, she said.

What is your educational background?

Starting with a diploma from St. Anthony Hospital School of Nursing in Oklahoma City, Weekes received a bachelor of science degree in health education from Oklahoma City University. After that, she earned a master of science degree in nursing from the University of Oklahoma, then her doctor of nursing science degree in 1989 from the University of California-San Francisco.

What jobs led you to your newest one?

Weekes was associate vice president for research and graduate studies at Florida International University in Miami for a year before coming to Springfield. For two years before that, she was dean of the College of Health Sciences there. At Boston College in Chestnut Hills, Mass., she was associate dean for graduate programs masters and doctorates for three years. Prior to that, she was a tenured associate professor at the University of California-San Francisco's School of Nursing for five years.

Please tell us about your personal life:

"My husband and I are not really Floridians in terms of it being a subtropical environment," she said. She found the job at the college and jumped at the chance to move, especially since she is closer to her mother, who lives in Oklahoma City. She is married to a banker with an MBA from Oklahoma State University. They have two daughters, Erica, 32, a vice president for an advertising agency in San Francisco, and Erin, 28, director of a Boston child-care center. The family plans to join the Springfield Seventh-day Adventist Church.

What do you do to relax?

Weekes loves crossword puzzles and mystery novels, especially those written by people who used to be in other professions, such as doctors or lawyers. A vegetarian, she loves to cook from "Chinese to Italian, without meat" and share the fellowship of meals with friends.

by Cheryl Capages