Support UNC Physician Assistants in memory of Alice McCaffrey

 

The Alice A. McCaffrey Memorial Scholarship is established to support the education and service aspirations of UNC Physician Assistant students. This scholarship is awarded yearly to a first or second year student in the MHS-PA program to promote diversity in the field, and to increase awareness of the profession of Physician Assistant.

Mrs. McCaffrey was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As a young child, she was evacuated from Belfast to a Catholic boarding school in order to avoid the bombings of World War II. This is where her love for education and desire to improve the lives of others took hold. Alice immigrated to America with three of her older siblings in 1953. They settled initially in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs of the City of Brotherly Love where she made her home and career for more than fifty years.

Being a first generation American, Alice knew the importance of education and the life changing effects it could have on the success or failure of not only individual achievement but on the whole of societal growth. She became a teacher and worked incessantly to provide her students with the knowledge, care and understanding necessary to propel them to a lifetime of achievement. Often decorated but rarely rewarded she taught for more than 30 years. Looking back Alice would often comment on the importance of providing education and its benefits to the diverse collection of students she would see each fall. This was most likely the result of self-examination of her own immigrant status and undoubtedly based on the desire to lift people up at every opportunity. The Alice A. McCaffrey Memorial Scholarship was created to echo these exact sentiments. The goal is to provide assistance to students who are working against the odds and chasing the dream of higher education with the same fervor and tenacity that Alice did. She wouldn’t have had it any other way.