Donor Spotlight, 2024

Caring for Kids: Carolyn R. and Gary L. Mueller Establish Planned Gift in Pediatric Nursing

During her time as a NICU nurse, Carolyn R. Mueller, PhD, RN, made it her mission to help worried parents connect with their delicate newborns through a loving touch or warm embrace.

“My goal was always to support the family in whatever future they have,” she said. “That’s what pediatric nurses do.”

Carolyn knows it takes a combination of education and experience to rise to the level of expertise needed to treat pediatric patients. That’s why she and her husband, Gary L. Mueller, M.D., established a planned gift that will create an endowed professorship at the School of Nursing to further clinical pediatric nursing education at the PhD level.

The Muellers are long-time supporters of the School of Nursing, but this is only the latest of Carolyn’s many roles for Texas Nursing.

She’s a Texas Nursing alumna after earning her PhD in Nursing in 1997—a transformational experience that enabled her to conduct research on the nursing care of children and families. One of her proudest UT Austin memories was seeing her dissertation bound and added to the body of research housed at the Perry-Castañeda Library on campus.

Carolyn said the ability to focus on her research and not have to work full-time during her PhD program was one of the biggest blessings she could have received and was the inspiration behind the creation of their estate gift, which will ultimately create an endowed professorship in pediatric nursing.

“The whole PhD program was more than I could imagine,” she said. “We want to provide these kinds of opportunities for other nurses and enable more nurses to gain graduate-level knowledge about pediatric nursing.”

They believe graduate-level education can change perspectives and lives, especially for nurses.

“You’re not going to come out the same way you went in,” Gary said. “You’re going to come out different.”

After earning her PhD, Carolyn accepted a faculty position at the School of Nursing teaching child/family nursing. She also served as co-chair of the Division of Family, Public Health and Nursing Systems and ultimately retired in 2016 as assistant professor of clinical nursing.

Now, she and Gary want to provide more opportunities for clinical pediatric nursing education at the PhD level.

“We both value education tremendously, so who best to give back to than those who nurtured you?” Carolyn said.

The Muellers are strong believers in supporting the local health care community in particular by providing pathways for advancing research into the needs of children and families in Austin.

“Children are not just little adults,” Gary said. “It’s immensely beneficial to have a knowledge set from a pediatric perspective, and we need the contributions of PhD-prepared academic researchers.”

Carolyn said the complexities of pediatric nursing are what she enjoys most because of the challenges they present.

“Pediatric nurses have expertise in navigating the many discussions and decisions needed to care for a child,” she said. “There is no doubt that the children of the State of Texas need to have educated nurses managing their care.”