In October, Dr. Dorothy Nulty and two RN-BSN students visited the Universidad El Bosque in Bogota, Colombia for the College of Nursing’s first international community practicum experience. Following an interview process, Cailey Walsh, a full-time online student, and Christine Danaher, a full-time face to face student, were selected.

The students worked with a high school affiliated with the university during their visit and learned about issues faced by the youth. After conferring with high school administrators, it was determined that a program on safe sex measures and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases would be meet a growing concern among the youth.

During this visit, Cailey and Christine met daily with the students to build a rapport and to address any other educational needs they may have on this subject. The week culminated with the SPC students providing 4 educational sessions for a total of 80 high school students. The sessions were very well received by the students and they actively participated in the games and exercises.

Additional learning experience were provided in which the students interacted with community members and other UEB nursing students. Cailey and Christine commented that this experience gave them many new things to consider which they plan to incorporate into their personal and clinical practice. Our colleges of nursing are looking forward to continuing a wonderful collegial relationship between our teaching institutions.

On April 22, 2016, The Disney Leadership Conference College Edition was held at Walt Disney World. This year, several SGA representatives attended including two of our own RN-BSN students, Christine Lussier and Dorothy Bruce. This conference gives students the unique opportunity to learn about Walt Disney World’s strategy for leadership and teamwork. During their day at the park, students were broken into groups of 15 and were assigned various team activities to facilitate working in groups cohesively and cooperatively. These activities were designed to incorporate aspects of Walt Disney World’s strategy for leadership and teamwork:

• Share your vision and build consensus around it
• Define the process and delegate responsibilities
• Create a culture of innovation

One activity required students to work in pairs to create an imaginary gown for Cinderella. The gown was to be designed for Cinderella’s special night at the Ball. This daunting task was to be completed without any communication between members. This required teams to work creatively not only in designing a Ball gown but also in finding a means to communicate with each other beyond voice, handwritten, or sign language. This conference gave BSN students Christine and Dorothy a magical Disney experience as well as insight into ways to build their roles as future nurses in leadership and teamwork.

On April 14, forty-one BSN Community Nursing students participated in a hunger banquet to increase awareness of the global hunger faced by many individuals in our country and worldwide. It is estimated that more than 795 million people in the world are undernourished. Oxfam America, an agency that provides foods to these individuals, developed the hunger banquet exercise as a means to bring to light the plight faced by these individuals.

For this experience, students are assigned an income level of low, moderate, and high to mimic the world’s economic distribution. Based on this random assignment, the students are provided a meal based on their designation. Students who were deemed low income retrieved their water from a bowl and were given yellow rice in a bowl. Middle income students were given a bottle of water and a bowl of rice and beans. The high income students were seated at a table and received rice, beans, chicken, bread, dessert, and water in a glass. This exercise lead to a lively discussion among our students about world hunger and ways that we can make a difference in our own communities as future nursing leaders.

The St. Petersburg College, College of Nursing RN to BSN Program is being renamed to honor the generous donation to the college by Dr. Walter Schafer and his wife, Vivian Schafer, R.N. The Shafers have long been supporters of nurses in general, and especially the RN to BSN program at SPC.

A lovely ceremony was held at the College of Nursing on March 24 to thank this family for their ongoing support. Members of the Schafer family were present for the unveiling of a new plaque in the main hall of the CON honoring Dr. and Mrs. Schafer. SPC President Dr. Bill Law, College of Nursing Dean Susan Baker, SPC Foundation members, and many family members were present at the unveiling and reception.

Rebecca Thieme, a May 2016 BSN graduate, thanked the Schafers for their contribution to the College of Nursing. Rebecca was able to complete her advanced degree with financial assistance which would not have been possible without our donors. SPC and the College of Nursing thank this wonderful family for their generous donation dedicated to the support of our students.

On Feb. 8, 2016, the nursing faculty held their annual Almeda Martin & Nancy Hartley Endowed Chair Event.

Each February, the College of Nursing devotes a day for the faculty to come together for professional development. This year’s event was “Best Practices for Communicating with Students.”

Instructional Technology Specialist Alan Shapiro and Instructional Technology Manager  Michelle Piper from SPC’s Online Learning and Services presented several methods by which faculty can engage students by using the available communication resources within MyCourses.

MyCourses tips for faculty

Faculty learned how to:

• use Intelligent Agent which is an automated reminder
• how to send video messages to their students
• how to design effective announcements on their course home page

Nursing faculty were excited to learn about these available features in MyCourses. Many were eager to begin employing them in their online courses this semester.

The College of Nursing faculty are committed to creating a presence in their online classes to promote student satisfaction, retention and success.

On January 6, 2015, over 80 new students admitted to the RN-BSN Nursing Program attended orientation. Each fall and spring semester, the BSN nursing faculty plan an orientation day for all of their new admissions, online and blended learners. On this day, students are introduced to the faculty and given an opportunity to learn about their classes, program guidelines, and how to be successful in completing their academic goal of achieving a baccalaureate in Nursing.

On this day, students learn about student resources such as disability services to the learning resource centers at each campus to the student assistance program. Students are also given an overview of what to expect with their upcoming courses in the first 8 week session – Professional Roles & Dimensions of Nursing Practice and Informatics & Clinical Reasoning. An additional session is provided by the HEC librarian that reviews the guidelines of scholarly writing and resources available to help them with their writing assignments. The orientation session ends with students meeting their assigned faculty advisor to review their program plan and to answer any questions they may have. This faculty member will work with the student through the entire program to follow their program plan. SPC and the BSN Nursing faculty are committed to the growth and success of their students in achieving their academic goals.