The Nurse Educators of Tomorrow award covers one year of tuition and expenses for students enrolled full-time at a college or university who desire to further their career in nursing education. Recipients are selected on the basis of strong academic performance, leadership and participation in pertinent extracurricular activities. In exchange for the award, recipients agree to serve one year as a nurse educator at a North Carolina institution.

Carlton, who joined the WCU faculty nearly two years ago, is working on her clinical doctorate of nursing at the University of Tennessee in Memphis. Now in her second year of the program, she plans to finish her degree this academic year and continue teaching at Western.

“There is so much opportunity in Western North Carolina for advanced nursing,” said Carlton. “At the WCU School of Nursing, we have a team approach to teaching and we are very student-centered. I have thoroughly enjoyed my teaching experience at Western.”

Carlton currently practices as a family nurse practitioner at Regional Allergy and Asthma Associates in Asheville and also educates nurses about the treatment of patients with asthma and allergies. She was honored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1990 for her Tennessee project to increase asthma knowledge in patients with asthma, their families, their communities, schoolteachers and allied health professionals. Carlton also has been recognized by the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology; the Tennessee Nurses Association; and the American Lung Association of Tennessee.

While in graduate school at Vanderbilt University, she served as the program director for the American Lung Association of Tennessee, where she created an asthma camp program and worked on other lung disease programs.