We are pleased to announce the winners of the 9th Annual Minority Nurse Magazine Scholarship Program awards. Ms. Mary Jo Coll, a nursing student at Drexel University, and Ms. Leah Peterson, a student at the University of California San Francisco School of Nursing, were both awarded scholarships of $1,000. Ms. Tiffany Copeland, a student at Molloy College Division of Nursing, and Ms. Jessy Johnson, a student at Mount Carmel College of Nursing, each received $500 scholarships.
Our four scholarship recipients are exceptional individuals, representing a variety of different backgrounds, interests and goals. Yet they are united by several key qualities: they are all outstanding scholars, have clearly demonstrated leadership ability and are strongly committed to “giving back” by volunteering actively within the communities they serve.
Watch for an article profiling our 2008 scholarship winners next year in the Spring 2009 issue of Minority Nurse. In the meantime, please join us in congratulating these talented students!
You can read the full article announcing all of the 2008 scholarship winners in the Spring ’09 Minority Nurse.
Earning a perfect 4.0 grade point average in her nursing prerequisite courses is an impressive enough achievement all by itself. But that’s just the beginning of what makes Erica Lee, a student in UCSF’s Master’s Entry Program in Nursing, such an extraordinary scholar. Add in her strong research, patient education and community outreach skills and her exceptional commitment to improving health care in minority communities and it’s easy to see what brought her to MN‘s scholarship winner’s circle. After graduating from Scripps College in 2003 with a dual B.A. in psychology and Asian American studies, Erica worked for three years as an HIV/AIDS counselor and health educator at a community-based non-profit organization serving at-risk Asian immigrant youth. Her responsibilities ranged from HIV testing and giving community presentations on HIV prevention to coordinating a peer education teen theater troupe. She also spent a summer working for San Francisco’s Aim High Summer Enrichment Program, where she taught health seminars to at-risk eighth grade students.
In addition, Erica brings a solid research background to her nursing studies. As a Psychology Department research assistant at Scripps, she helped design a study investigating ethnic identity and interracial stress among school-aged children. She also worked on a research project that examined cognitive differences between young people and elders and she spent a study-abroad semester in Milan, Italy.
Erica’s goals for her nursing career include becoming an advanced practice pediatric nurse. “I would initially like to work at a clinic that offers both on-site and outreach care to children and families from underserved populations,” she says. “In this way I can use my training to provide individualized, culturally competent care that focuses on prevention, wellness and patient education.”
ANNA RIOS-SMITH
ANNA RIOS-SMITH
Samuel Merritt College
$1,000 Scholarship
What do peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have to do with Anna Rios-Smith being selected to receive a Minority Nurse Magazine Scholarship? The answer is: They symbolize this outstanding nursing student’s unique commitment to not just participating in community service programs but initiating them.
It all began one recent Thanksgiving when Anna and her fiancé, Bill Doyle, decided to make a bunch of “PB&Js” and drive around their Oakland, Calif., community handing out the sandwiches to hungry homeless people. Soon Anna and Bill were distributing sandwiches every weekend, along with donated clothing, pillows and blankets. Eventually the couple co-founded their own non-profit organization, Paloma Negra, to provide this service on an ongoing basis, as well as other projects like collecting handmade blankets for donation to terminally ill Bay Area children.
In addition to all this, Anna’s academic excellence has brought her National Dean’s List status as well as induction into Phi Theta Kappa, a scholastic honor society for students attending two-year colleges. This January she began the second part of a 2+2 cooperative nursing program between Mills College in Oakland—where she earned a 3.48 GPA in her pre-nursing courses—and Samuel Merritt College, from which she will graduate with her BSN degree in 2009. While at Mills, she participated in a Kaiser Permanente INROADS internship program for minority students, attended nursing leadership seminars and played a leading role in creating a nursing students’ organization on campus.
Dr. J. Diane Jassawalla, who was Anna’s advisor at Mills College, describes her as “a very dedicated student, eager to learn and determined to make a difference in her community. She is an intelligent, ethical, caring person who is committed to becoming a nurse so she can not only offer health care but also help develop health care alternatives for underserved people of color.” This is clearly reflected in Anna’s plans for the future: She wants to establish a clinic for medically underserved minority women.
REBECCA GUIDRY
REBECCA GUIDRY
University of Rochester School of Nursing
$500 Scholarship
Rebecca Guidry describes herself as “a very proud member of the United Houma Nation,” a state-recognized Indian tribe based in southern Louisiana. And Rebecca has other things to be proud of as well. Despite growing up in a small, economically disadvantaged rural community that has a 72% illiteracy rate, she has excelled in her nursing prerequisite courses at Nicholls State University and in her first year as a master’s entry student in the University of Rochester (N.Y.) School of Nursing’s Accelerated Master’s Program for Non-Nurses, where she was named a Helene Fuld Scholar in recognition of her academic achievements and leadership potential.
But what Rebecca is undoubtedly most proud of is the exceptional work she has done to improve health care access and quality in her medically underserved tribal community, which is not eligible to receive federal assistance. After earning a bachelor’s degree in management from the University of Louisiana in 1999, she worked with community groups to develop a health care needs assessment and open a culturally appropriate community clinic that provided care to 1,800 patients during its first year.
This experience eventually inspired Rebecca to pursue a career in nursing. “Opening the clinic for my community was one of the most exhilarating moments in my life,” she says, “but after working to establish this successful program, I realized that I wanted to be more involved with patient care. Working directly with patients gives you a whole other level of satisfaction.”
Rebecca is a student member of the National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association (NANAINA). She continues to provide community service by participating in the AmeriCorps program and has volunteered as a victims’ assistance counselor for the Rochester Police Department.
ROSEMARY NUNDU MAINGI
ROSEMARY NUNDU MAINGI
Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing
$500 Scholarship
Rosemary Nundu Maingi, a senior in OHSU’s BSN degree program, grew up in Kenya “surrounded by human suffering—poverty, famine, disease and natural disasters.” Her experiences of volunteering at a refugee camp in northeastern Kenya and caring for a relative who died of AIDS have instilled in her an unwavering desire to “make a difference in people’s lives, not only by caring but also by being part and parcel of their well-being.”
Nundu, as she is called, is a highly motivated student who has a 3.54 overall GPA and a 4.0 average in her clinical rotations. She speaks six languages, including Spanish and American Sign Language. Nundu is also exceptionally active in community service projects and on-campus organizations. She has helped with relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina and the 2003 Asian tsunami, participated in food drives for the homeless, volunteered at local public health clinics and recently earned disaster response certification from the Emergency Management Institute. “Nundu is a remarkable woman who brings wisdom, compassion and a global view to nursing,” says Donna Markle, OHSU School of Nursing associate professor emeritus. “She is an outstanding student who demonstrates strong critical thinking skills, the ability to readily apply theory to practice and a strong sense of social justice. Nundu enhances her colleagues’ understanding of cultural issues and has made a significant contribution to helping them gain greater cultural awareness. She has a natural ability to provide leadership in nursing.”
What lies ahead for Nundu, who will graduate from her nursing program in June? “My future career plans are to acquire a master’s and later a PhD in nursing [and to work as] a nurse practitioner in community health,” she says. According to Markle, Nundu’s long-term goals “include finding opportunities to return periodically to Africa to help address health care needs in Kenya.”
Pay It Forward, a novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde that was made into a movie in 2000, tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who comes up with a simple but brilliant plan for helping to make the world a better place. He does favors for people, then tells them that instead of paying him back, they should “pay it forward” by doing favors for other people–who, in turn, will pay it forward to still other folks.
In 2006, Cynthia J. Hickman, BSN, RN, BCCVN, a case manager in the congestive heart failure unit at St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System in Houston, received a $50,000 Johnson & Johnson Community Health Care Leadership Award for her outstanding community service in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As a volunteer in her employer’s “St. Luke’s Cares” disaster recovery initiative, Hickman provided nursing services to Katrina evacuees at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center. The award, presented jointly to Hickman and St. Luke’s, had its own “pay it forward” component: The money was to be used to advance the quality of care in their community.
Hickman and St. Luke’s decided that a portion of the grant would be used to fund scholarships to help future nurses get the education they need to make a difference in the community. As a result, the Cynthia J. Hickman “Pay It Forward” Nursing Scholarship–the first scholarship to be established by a St. Luke’s nurse–was born. The scholarship, awarded to St. Luke’s employees pursuing education leading to RN licensure, provides financial assistance, mentoring and other support. Scholarship recipients are encouraged to “pay it forward” when they graduate.
The first recipient of the Cynthia J. Hickman “Pay It Forward” Nursing Scholarship, presented in July at the National Black Nurses Association’s 2007 Institute and Conference in Atlanta, is Lakeyna Nickerson of Pearland, Texas. She is a student at Texas Woman’s University.
For Hickman, who recalls her own experience of struggling to balance nursing school, family responsibilities and full-time employment, the scholarship named in her honor is her own personal way of “paying it forward” by helping fellow St. Luke’s employees who find themselves in similar circumstances. “My way of making the world a better place,” she says, “is to help others complete their education and attain their goal of becoming a registered nurse.”
So Bette Keltner, PhD, RN, newly appointed dean of the Georgetown University School of Nursing in Washington, D.C., describes the minority recruitment challenge faced by nursing schools throughout the country. In an effort to more closely reflect the diversity of the general population and secure a voice for all communities, nursing schools are trying both old and new methods to attract more students of color to their campuses.
Keltner, immediate past president of the National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association, plans to attack Georgetown’s need for more minority nursing students from all fronts, beginning with careful planning. “There is no easy formula,” she says. “[Minority recruiting] is a complex set of circumstances and requires a systematic plan, similar to a business plan.”
The Georgetown dean encourages college and university nursing programs of all sizes to approach their diversity needs with a similar strategy. By drafting a written plan and highlighting short-term and long-term goals, schools will begin to formulate incremental steps to increase minority enrollment, Keltner advises.
Why are so many schools of nursing so eager to increase the diversity of their student populations? While each college or university may have its own motivation, many of these efforts seem to be driven more by a desire to better reflect the community than by a push from administration to up the minority percentages, or boost enrollments in general.
“One of nursing’s major selling points is that if you come into this profession, you will be able to serve your community,” explains Melissa Avery, MSN, RN, [TITLE TK] at the University of Minnesota’s School of Nursing in Minneapolis. The university’s Center of American Indian & Minority Health, established in 1987, recently received a major grant to further increase diversity at the school. The center provides academic, social and financial support to minority undergraduate and graduate students.
The goal of increasing diversity at the University of Minnesota is not limited to the nursing program, but exists throughout the UM system, Avery adds. In fact, receiving the grant to improve nursing diversity was a direct result of the Duluth campus’ success in attracting Native Americans into its medical school.
Entering the Mansion
Keltner believes recruiting more minorities into the nursing profession presents a threefold challenge for nurse educators.
“First, it isn’t just a nursing problem,” she asserts. “Increasing diversity has become a challenge for all professions. Historically, when minorities have been barred from participation, there is no pipeline established to lead students into the field.
“Recruiting minorities is very different [from recruiting non-minorities]. The approach must be more personal and family-oriented.” —Bette Keltner, PhD, RN, Georgetown University
“Second, the nursing profession has not adequately responded to changes in professional demographics. We still primarily recruit women. If you look at medical schools around the country, even the most traditional ones, enrollment is now approximately 50% men and 50% women. It’s hard to recruit minorities when you’re ignoring 50% of the minority population.”
Keltner’s third concern is the large number of minority nurses who stop their professional education at the vocational school certificate or associate’s degree level. “While vocational schools and junior colleges are doing a good job of attracting minorities into the field of nursing, those degrees do not lead to leadership positions,” she says. “This keeps minority nurses who do not go on to baccalaureate or advanced degree programs at the low end of the career ladder.
“It’s like opening the door to a mansion, but you can only stand on the front steps. You can’t go in where it’s warm, where the chairs are comfortable and where you can participate in the conversation.”
While Keltner expresses tremendous respect for minority nurses who hold nursing diplomas or two-year degrees, she also stresses the urgent need for more nurse leaders. “Minority nurses need to have a voice on administrative boards, in teaching and in the policy arena. It’s unfortunate that there are so many nurses of color who are not getting the advanced education that would prepare them to be those voices.”
Bridging the Gaps
Fortunately, college and university nursing schools are beginning to respond to this challenge. A growing number of baccalaureate programs are reaching out to students in two-year programs, helping to ease the transition for minorities who need encouragement and help in pursuing higher education.
“Sometimes, we do encourage students to attend a junior college first,” says Deb Wilson, program coordinator for the Recruitment/Retention of American Indians Into Nursing (RAIN) program at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. “Because a four-year institution can sometimes be overwhelming, our program helps junior college students receive one-on-one assistance. We help them succeed in the two-year program so that they will ultimately be able to succeed in a four-year program.” RAIN offers junior college students such assistance as help in course selection and a quarterly newsletter.
Another innovative way nursing schools are attracting more minority students is by making their classes more accessible to students who are trying to juggle the demands of career, college and family. Online learning programs are becoming increasingly popular. Schools are also finding that offering classes off-campus in locations convenient to minority communities is an effective tool.
With its newly received grant money, the University of Minnesota will fund a distance-learning program for graduate students. “This will make things more convenient for our minority students,” Avery explains. “They will be required to be on campus some of the time, but not nearly as much as they would in a traditional nursing program.”
Reaching Out—With Cultural Competence
To let prospective minority students know about the benefits their programs offer, many nursing schools are taking a more targeted approach to their advertising and publicity efforts. According to Avery, the University of Minnesota’s School of Nursing budget includes money to advertise in magazines and professional journals aimed at minority nurses. She is also working with historically black colleges to attract nursing students from those four-year programs into UM’s graduate school.
Other institutions have had good results by recruiting at career fairs in minority neighborhoods, manning booths at professional nursing conferences and even enlisting the help of alumni to speak to prospective nursing students.
But to be truly successful in recruiting minority nursing students, schools must be sensitive to students’ cultural needs, Keltner emphasizes. “Recruiting minorities is very different [than recruiting non-minorities]. The approach must be more personal and family-oriented. That doesn’t mean you can’t recruit minority students with promotional CDs and Web sites, but those efforts should be followed up with a face-to-face visit or a telephone call.”
Most minority parents are eager for their children to go to college, she adds. But it’s often difficult for them to send their children away to school because of cultural traditions, fear for the child’s safety and fear of the family’s growing apart. In Keltner’s culture, for example, a child’s umbillical cord is buried near the house so that the child will never move far from home. Without that knowledge, a non-Indian recruiter would automatically assume that the parents are eager for their child to attend a good school, regardless of its location.
The Price of Success
Delaware State University” src=”/sites/default/files/articles/02-14-01d-pc3.jpg” />“Three years ago, we hired a nurse recruiter to go out and recruit students. She was bringing them in, but we weren’t keeping them.” —Mary Watkins, PhD, RN, Delaware State University
In addition to providing specialized academic and cultural support systems, nursing schools that hope to attract more students of color must not overlook the financial pressures many minority students face. Most schools have found that a successful minority recruitment program must address this need with more than the usual financial aid package.
Keltner readily admits that tuition is expensive—a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown carries a $150,000 price tag. But she also points out that students have many other expenses that can be draining to their pocketbooks. “Trips home during breaks are important and can be very expensive, depending on how far away the student is from home. Even phone calls home need to be supported,” she asserts.
Delaware State University, a historically black college in Dover, Del., offers stipends to its neediest students, many of whom are single parents, says Dr. Mary Watkins, chair of the Nursing Department. When granting stipends, the school expects students to cut down on the hours worked at outside jobs to give them more time to study.
Wilson, who has been recruiting minority students to the University of North Dakota for 20 years, believes that students’ inability to pay for their education is becoming more common and harder to address, because of changing financial aid rules and the rising cost of tuition.
One funding source that has helped many RAIN students is the Indian Health Service. The agency provides scholarships and post-graduate placement services. Wilson maintains close contact with officials there.
Teaching Diversity With Diversity
To make their nursing programs more attractive to students from a diverse range of backgrounds, many schools are examining their faculty as well. An all-white, all-female teaching and advising staff isn’t likely to boost minority recruitment. Students want teachers they can relate to—they need positive role models who share their ethnic backgrounds. An academic staff with a lack of ethnic and racial diversity can be detrimental to minority student recruitment efforts.
“Student and faculty diversity often go hand in hand,” explains Avery. “We’re trying to recruit faculty of color as well as students of color. Currently, we have three American Indian faculty members. We hope to continue that and further increase our faculty diversity.”
But because minorities are still severely underrepresented in the ranks of academe, recruiting minority faculty can be difficult. “There are so few nursing educators of color, and they are being recruited so heavily right now. It’s hard to get them,” Avery explains.
Delaware State’s Watkins takes the importance of a diverse faculty one step further. She feels the faculty must also be able to relate to the perils and pains experienced by many of today’s minority youth.
“About half of our faculty are minorities, and we want them to understand our students’ struggles,” she says. “Some of our students have had family members murdered and other serious problems. We want our faculty to be caring and understanding of those issues.”
Holding On to What You’ve Got
While nursing schools may be working hard to recruit more minority students, they may soon be facing a more serious challenge: retaining those students.
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“Three years ago, we hired a nurse recruiter to go out and recruit students. She was bringing them in, but we weren’t keeping them,” Watkins explains.
This inspired Watkins to develop the Nursing Retention and Academic Success Project (N-RASP) at Delaware State. She hired a retention expert who helps students with everything from classroom problems to parenting advice. The school also revamped its programs to give borderline students the support and encouragement they need to succeed.
“Many of our minority students have a lower level of confidence and self esteem; they have to be really determined to make it,” Watkins states.
To help give minority students a better chance to succeed, some schools have implemented pre-nursing programs. “Many of our students have been poorly prepared in high school,” says Watkins. “If students have a C average, we will admit them into our pre-nursing program. They must maintain a 2.5 grade point average, complete all nursing subjects with a C or better and score 60% on our nursing entrance exam. We currently have 65 students in the pre-nursing program and we expect 20 of them to eventually become full-fledged nursing students.”
The N-RASP program offers students such assistance as motivational seminars and special courses that teach critical thinking and writing skills. N-RASP is also a prime example of how a successful mentoring program can keep students from dropping out. Each faculty member mentors one or two students for the duration of their nursing college experience. In addition, female undergraduates are assigned a more experienced student to be a “Big Sister,” while “Big Brothers” assist freshman and sophomore males. “Sometimes younger students are more open to their peers’ advice than their professors,’” Watkins comments.
Ultimately, one key ingredient seems to be common to all successful minority student recruitment programs: a committed staff that believes not only in the need for more potential minority nurses, but also in the college’s ability to attract them.
“We work 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Wilson. “When a student needs us, we have to be there. It takes that kind of commitment to make it work.”
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation P.O. Box 2316 College Road East and Route 1 Princeton, N.J. 08543-2316 (888) 631-9989 www.rwjf.org
The foundation began after its namesake, the man behind the Johnson & Johnson medical empire, left the majority of his estate to begin what would become the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of Americans. Working with a variety of organizations and individuals, the foundation funds research, education and other efforts at hospitals; medical, nursing and public schools; hospices; professional associations; research organizations; government agencies and community organizations.
Reducing Disparities in Health Care
Among the foundation’s key areas of focus are addressing disparities and public health issues and building human capital in the health care workplace. Last fall, the foundation announced three national initiatives—and dedicated $23 million—aimed at eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care treatment. Their goal is to reduce disparities in the next three years by examining patient care and current health systems and by making suggestions for improved care.
Researchers at George Washington University, the University of Chicago and Harvard University are leading the three programs. They will focus on cardiac care received by minority patients and fund various organizations to focus on disparities in health plans, hospitals and community clinics. They will also collect and analyze results from other research on disparities to inform efforts at improving care and technical processes in health systems.
Among other reports, the foundation’s health research publications dealt with covered care at big-city hospitals, the effects of anthrax on those exposed, how federal health dollars are being spent in the states, and protecting public health in the face of bioterrorism.
Building Human Capital
Not all of the foundation’s work is research-related, however. One area allied health students and professionals should keep an eye on is the foundation’s focus on building human capital. Robert Wood Johnson funds training and education programs for doctors, nurses and other health care workers. In 2005, the foundation hosted a series of one-day informational workshops, Frontline Workforce Development: Promoting Partnerships and Emerging Practices in Health and Health Care, to share research and tips for the advancement of the allied health workforce.
The foundation has particularly focused on those professionals who receive the smallest compensation, such as nurse aides, home health aides, psychiatric technicians, and others because, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Web site, these health care workers are “often the first and most frequent point of contact for patients and clients. Despite their importance, these essential workers are often poorly paid and have limited opportunities for training, advancement and reward.”
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One of the programs in this area aims to train workers in hospitals and other facilities so that employees at all levels—from housekeeping to nurses—can receive continuing education to encourage their advancement.
Addressing Needs
Like many organizations and schools interested in addressing both health disparities among their patients, as well as career advancement and adequate pay for their allied health care workers, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also values assisting their minority students and professionals to receive the training they need to be successful in the field of allied health.
“The biggest challenge is the anti-affirmative action climate in this country,” says Contance Pechura, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Because of the Supreme Court decisions in the Michigan cases, it puts any program that’s based on selection by ethnicity or race in very murky legal territory.” As a result, the foundation has expanded its criteria for some programs to include economically disadvantaged rural areas.
The Basics
The Robert Wood Johnson foundation maintains an informative and up-to-date Web site (www.rwjf.org) that you can check out for interesting developments in research and current health care and public health trends. Visit the site to stay informed or to check its “Job Opportunities” section under “About Us.”
![“Recruiting minorities is very different [from recruiting non-minorities]. The approach must be more personal and family-oriented.” —Bette Keltner, PhD, RN, Georgetown University](/sites/default/files/articles/02-14-01d-pc2.jpg)
