New scholarship fund supports student athletes

By Katie Coburn

If there’s a UC alumna who bleeds red and black, it’s Andi Wiot. She has kept close ties with the university ever since earning her bachelor’s degree from the College of Nursing in 1965. An active trustee on the UC Foundation Board and a Bearcat football and basketball season ticket holder, Wiot says she has been grateful for her UC education. Now, at 76 years old, she is showing her appreciation through the establishment of The Andrea K. Wiot Family Scholarship in Nursing, which provides scholarships for undergraduate nursing students and for athletes who are nursing students.

Totaling $1 million, the endowment funds were established in fall 2019 and will begin benefiting students in the upcoming academic year. Although Wiot didn’t play collegiate sports, she recognizes the sacrifices athletes who study nursing must make in order to excel in both academics and athletics.

“Nurse athletes have my respect, because I just can’t imagine how they can participate in a sport given the workload that nursing students carry,” she says. “There are some pretty amazing students at the College of Nursing.”

The endowment funds are just another way for Wiot to support those students and give back to the college. In 1991, she played an integral role in founding the college’s Board of Advisors, on which she served until 2003. She also helped launch the first Florence Nightingale Awards for Excellence in Nursing event in 1992 and continues to attend every year.

“When we started to organize the Nightingale event, we thought it’d be wonderful if we had 300 people attend, and we ended up having many more. We were shocked. Every hospital in the area wanted to have representation there,” she says. “And it keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

Following graduation, Wiot spent seven years working in the emergency room of the then-Cincinnati General Hospital, climbing the ranks from nurse to head nurse to supervisor. She says she is inspired by how far the nursing profession has progressed over the past 55 years and how the college’s history of excellence has helped push the needle forward. Today, instead of being viewed as an assistant to the physician, Wiot says nurses are respected for playing an integral role on the health care team.

“There’s so much that nurses can do, and there are a lot of people who need care, and nurses are doing a great job filling those roles,” she says. “The UC College of Nursing is helping create the nurse leaders needed to continue advancing the profession.”

When she isn't attending UC sporting events, Wiot enjoys playing tennis, golfing and walking through her Indian Hill neighborhood. She says she will continue playing an active role in the Bearcat community for years to come.

“UC is a great institution to support and give back to because I’ve been blessed by the opportunities at the College of Nursing.”