Emerge Gallery & Art Center Executive Director Holly Garriott has been named to the 2027 Arts North Carolina Board of Directors, Emerge announced.
Arts North Carolina is the statewide advocacy organization for the arts that calls for equity and access to the arts for all North Carolinians, unifies and connects North Carolina’s arts communities and fosters arts leadership, the announcement said.
Led by a statewide board of directors that will include Garriott, the organization speaks for the arts wherever there is need, according to Emerge, home to the Pitt County Arts Council.
Founded in 1974 as the North Carolina Association of Arts Councils, the organization was instrumental in developing and advocating for the Grassroots Arts Program, a nationally recognized program of decentralized, per capita funding for the arts through the North Carolina Arts Council and local arts councils.
Garriott also is an associate teaching professor at School of Art and Design at East Carolina University. She founded Emerge Gallery in Greenville in 2000, when she was a graduate student in ceramics at ECU.
In 2009, Emerge became the designated partner to the North Carolina Arts Council as the local arts agency. Pitt County previously had no arts council for nearly two decades.
For 24 years, Garriott has helped build the arts community in Pitt County and has assisted with the revitalization of Greenville’s Downtown District, the announcement said, and dedicated her career to making the arts accessible and enhancing the quality of life for Pitt County and eastern North Carolina.
She has supervised more than 100 public art projects and received many grants throughout the years including the National Endowment for the Arts “Our Town” grant and, most recently, a $250,000 NEA Local Arts Agencies grant to sub-grant to Pitt County arts organizations.
Garriott received a bachelor’s degree in art from James Madison University, focusing on printmaking and ceramics, where she was also on the 1994 Division 1 National Championship Field Hockey team. She then received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in ceramics from East Carolina University.
Garriott previously served on the state Board of Directors of Arts North Carolina for several years, was an officer on the Uptown Greenville Board of Directors for 10 years and is a board member of the Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce. Her professional expertise is in nonprofit arts management, civic arts facilitation, events planning and strategic planning.
The Pitt County Arts Council at Emerge is a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the quality of life in Pitt County by promoting artists and arts organizations, educating through the arts, and making the arts accessible to the community. Call 551-6947 or email info@pittcountyarts.org for more information.
Optimum donates $15k to Pitt County Schools
Optimum donated $15,000 to Pitt County Schools to support local public school teachers and students this upcoming school year, the company announced.
As part of Pitt County Schools’ International Teacher Celebration that took place last week at J.H. Rose Hill School in Greenville, Optimum presented the county with funding through the company’s partnership with national education nonprofit DonorsChoose, which will enable access to tools, technologies, and experiences to support student success.
Since Optimum’s partnership with DonorsChoose was first announced in 2020, the company has supported more than 70 classroom projects across 20-plus schools in Pitt County, furthering its mission to support communities by inspiring the next generation of innovators and creators, the company said.
As part of Optimum’s ongoing efforts to support education, digital literacy and community engagement, the company continues to find ways to deepen its presence and connect customers to what matters most, the company said.
That includes supporting, understanding, and celebrating what makes each of its local communities unique, including throughout Pitt County, it said.
This donation is an example of Optimum’s commitment to customers and businesses in communities across Pitt County, the company said.
Nursing program focuses on gerontology
East Carolina University’s College of Nursing and ECU Health are launching a new graduate-level certificate program that will prepare more specialized gerontology nurse practitioners in acute care settings across the state, the institutions announced.
The adult gerontology acute care nurse practitioner program will provide the didactic and clinical experiences necessary to meet the growing needs of patient populations in North Carolina, said Dr. Julie Linder, chair of the Advanced Nursing Practice and Education department.
“We have a lot of nurse practitioners in North Carolina who are doing amazing work to care for patients in ICUs and other very demanding care sites,” she said. “We also want to expand the knowledge, skills and abilities of current practitioners because the need is so high and the shortage of providers is so great.”
According to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, only 6.1% of nurse practitioners specialize in adult gerontology acute care. The aging population is growing nationally, along with an ongoing shortage of health care workers. The collaboration between the College of Nursing and ECU Health bolsters the health care workforce in eastern North Carolina, enhances health outcomes and increases access to specialized care for older adults in these communities.
“ECU Health values its strong partnership with ECU and the College of Nursing, especially in addressing the national health care workforce shortage,” said Pam Rudisill, vice president of nursing excellence at ECU Health. “Our success as an academic health system relies on bridging clinical and academic excellence to provide high-quality care to eastern North Carolina. Eastern North Carolina depends on collaborative solutions from institutions like ECU Health and ECU to meet the needs and improve the health and well-being of our region.”
ECU Health’s Chief Nursing Office will support its employees by offering tuition reimbursement as a commitment to support the certificate program and help employees advance their education and skills.
The first cohort will begin classes in Spring 2025. Students who complete course requirements on the recommended plan of study should graduate in May 2026. Upon graduation, these students will be eligible to take a specialty exam to become certified as Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioners.
The application deadline for that first cohort is Dec. 15, and applicants can find application requirements and procedures, along with required courses in the curriculum, at nursing.ecu.edu/msn/post-masters-certificate/agacnp-certificate/.
The certificate program is a post-master’s program, which means applicants must already be recognized as advanced practice nurses. The education students will receive will provide them with the skills to work in acute care settings. ECU offers prerequisite courses if prospective students have not already completed them.
“We invite prospective students to contact us in the event they need prerequisite courses prior to beginning their core class work,” Linder said.
ECU’s College of Nursing and ECU Health previously developed pathways for the development of the future of nursing care in eastern North Carolina with the establishment of an academic-practice partnership, seeded by a $1.5 million investment from ECU Health over five years. This investment has provided the ECU College of Nursing with the opportunity to hire faculty, staff, and purchase resources to support students in the Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner certificate program.
The first cohort will be approximately 12 students, with a minimum of six seats dedicated to ECU Health employees and other slots open to applicants interested in advancing their careers in critical care.
ECU will join three other nursing programs in North Carolina to offer the AGACNP certification.
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