(SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Nov. 21, 2017) Stat Staff Professionals Inc., a nurse-owned and operated health-care staffing organization, and alumnus David Theobald ’13, ‘17, have provided a second scholarship to SUNY Empire State College, which will support students enrolled in the college’s School of Nursing and Allied Health.

The Stat Staff Professionals Nursing and Allied Health Scholarship will award up to $5,000 annually, with two awards of up to $2,500 each, one for a student enrolled in nursing and another in allied health.

Theobald, the founder and CEO of Stat Staff, earned his RN to B.S.N. in 2013, and a Master of Science in Nursing Education in 2017, both from SUNY Empire.

“Our organization is honored to help support both nursing and allied health students enrolled at Empire State College through scholarships,” said Theobald. “I also know firsthand the financial challenges students experience early on in their careers and feel thankful for the opportunity to give back to the program, which has had such a profound impact on advancing my knowledge and ability to improve health care.”

School of Nursing and Allied Health Dean Bridget Nettleton said, “Thanks to the generosity of alumnus David Theobald and Stat Staff, more working health-care providers and current students will have access to our bachelor’s and master’s programs and, importantly, far greater opportunities to complete their degree. At the same time, their employers and the public benefit from a better-educated health-care workforce. David Theobald's and Stat Staff’s ongoing support of nursing and allied health student scholarships at SUNY Empire is an outstanding example of giving back to the greater community and I am extremely grateful for their support.”

Preference will be given to students living or working in the greater Capital Region, who also meet the established Empire State College Foundation scholarship eligibility criteria, including matriculation, appropriate GPA and successful academic progress.

Saratoga Springs-based Stat Staff specializes in providing registered nurse and allied health care professional supplemental staffing services to hospitals and health-care organizations across New York state.

Stat Staff has a formal partnership with SUNY Empire, and offers its employees tuition discounts, scholarships and a textbook-share program.

Previously, Stat Staff and Theobald established the Stat Staff Professionals Nursing Scholarship.

About SUNY Empire State College

Empire State College, the nontraditional, open college of the SUNY system educates nearly 18,000 students worldwide at eight international sites, more than 30 locations across the state of New York, online, as well as face to face and through a blend of both, at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The average age of an undergraduate student at the college is 35 and graduate students’ average age is 40.

Most Empire State College students are working adults. Many are raising families and meeting civic commitments in the communities where they live, while studying part time.

In addition to awarding credit for prior college-level learning, the college pairs each undergraduate student with a faculty mentor who supports that student throughout his or her college career.

Working with their mentors, students design an individual degree program and engage in guided independent study and coursework on site, online or through a combination of both, which provides the flexibility for students to choose where, when and how to learn.

The college’s more than 80,000 alumni are active in their communities as entrepreneurs, politicians, business professionals, artists, nonprofit agency employees, teachers, veterans and active military, union members and more.

The college was first established in 1971 by the SUNY Board of Trustees with the encouragement of the late Ernest L. Boyer, chancellor of the SUNY system from 1970 to 1977. Boyer also served as United States commissioner of education during the administration of President Jimmy Carter and then as president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

More information about the college is available at www.esc.edu.