Dr. Julia Snethen Announced as Graceland University Fall Commencement Speaker

Graceland is glad to welcome back Julia Snethen as the commencement speaker for Fall 2019. Snethen received a Bachelor of Science in nursing from Graceland in 1982. She went on to study maternal-child nursing at the University of Texas-Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, where she received her Master of Science degree in nursing in the functional tracts of nursing education and pediatric nurse practitioner. Attending school at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Snethen completed a doctorate degree in nursing, where her research focused on adolescents’ perspectives of living with end-stage renal disease. Snethen worked with Marion Broome on her post-doctoral fellowship, in which she qualitatively examined the process of informed consent for research with children, from the perspective of the sibling.

Snethen’s research areas have focused on varying aspects of chronic conditions in children from the perspectives of mothers, fathers, children and siblings. In recent years, her focus has been directed at obesity in children, with a strong interest in childhood obesity within the Latino community.

Graceland’s fall commencement ceremonies will be held Dec. 14 at the Community of Christ Auditorium in Independence, Missouri.