From left to right: Lape’s huband, Willard E. Lape, Jr., daughter Melanie (Lape) Pitts, Rosemary L. Lape ‘56, G’68, Lape’s daughter-in-law, and son Willard E. Lape III at Lape’s retirement party.
Rosemary L. Lape ’56, G’68, professor emerita of nursing, was both a Syracuse University alumna and faculty member. Born 1931 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Lape received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Syracuse University School of Nursing.
Lape, who passed away in September 2016, served as an associate professor of nursing at Syracuse University for 32 years. “The most outstanding thing about [Lape] was that she was the most ethical person you would ever meet,” says fellow professor emerita of nursing Barbara “Bobbi” Harris ’61, G’90, Ph.D.’90.
Lape and her colleague, the late Julia Evelyn “Ev” Osborne ’47, ’49, G‘67, professor emerita of nursing, each studied for one year as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Faculty Fellowship program in Rochester, New York in 1978 and 1977, respectively. With the experience gained at the fellowship, together she, Osborne and Harris started a primary care nurse practitioner program at Syracuse University.
Lape is quoted in a 1978 article, “Nurse Practitioners Examine, Treat Patients,” saying, “I believe that primary care is the future of nursing and I want to be there.”
In the article, Dr. Ungenborg Mauksch, then-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Faculty Fellowship Program in Princeton, New Jersey said, “It is hoped that the program will increase the number of nursing schools offering primary care training to produce nurse practitioners. These specially trained nurses now represent only a small percentage of nurses, but they have shown that practicing jointly with physicians, they can assume responsibility for a major share of the patients seen in practices offering general medical services.”
In the same article, then-Syracuse University Dean of Nursing Thetis Group said, “We are fortunate that Prof. Lape and Prof. Evelyn Starr Osborne will be able to work together as a team in this project.”
Lape’s involvement at Syracuse University will be warmly remembered.
