The awardees pose with nursing student leaders after receiving their awards. From left: Alison Lazzaro (NJNS 1st VP-elect), Dean Dr. Marcia Blicharz, Chair Susan Mitchell, Susan Moraca (NJNS President-elect)

EWING, NJ… The leaders in the School of Nursing are getting statewide recognition.

New Jersey Nursing Students Inc. has named Marcia Blicharz, Dean of the School of Nursing, Health and Exercise Science, and Susan Mitchell, Chair of the Department of Nursing, “2012 Dean and Director of the Year.”

As 2012 NJNS award winners, the pair stands out among nominees in 51 schools, including diploma and associate degree programs, across the state of New Jersey. It is also the first year that a TCNJ administrator has been recognized in this way by NJNS, said Mitchell.

“Both leaders were recognized and nominated together for outstanding excellence as nursing educators and leaders by a student from The College of New Jersey,” said the 2011-2012 NJNS’ Community Health Director Carolyn Isabelle Bogdon in a congratulatory e-mail.

Blicharz and Mitchell were ceremoniously honored as the guests of honor at the 2012 NJNS Convention’s New Jersey Nursing Students (NJNS) Inc. Dean/Directors/Faculty Luncheon on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012 from 12:30-2:00 pm at Bally’s hotel and casino in Atlantic City.

In the letter that the NJNS sent to Blicharz and Mitchell to alert them of their award, an excerpt from the application of nominating nursing student Susan Moraca, who was taught Pharmacology by Blicharz and Wellness Promotion by Mitchell, is shared.

 “They support us 100% in all of our activities, assist us in being creative in managing our schedules, help keep us grounded in the midst of the chaos that is nursing school, and (inject) the enthusiasm that we all need to keep going when challenges arise,” Moraca wrote.

Moraca, a junior, added that Blicharz and Mitchell are not just superior educators and leaders, but also the nursing students’ “confidants, cheerleaders, business managers, liaisons, inspirations, and above all, role models.”

According to Moraca, who was elected President of the New Jersey State Student Nurses Association (NJNS) at the Feb. 16 convention, in addition to being her professors, Blicharz and Mitchell were also her academic mentors when she came to the College as a transfer student.

“As I wrote in my nomination essay, it is the consensus among all nursing students that these two individuals have touched our lives in key ways … I am merely the messenger of the amazing impact (they) have had on hundreds of students.  From the bottom of my heart, when I learned they had won I was ecstatic, as I’m sure all of us students were,” she said in an email. “This award is only a small way to give back to these wonderful individuals who have inspired us all so greatly.”

In response to the award, both Blicharz and Mitchell expressed feelings of honor and gratefulness to the nursing community.

“I am very proud of our nursing students and nursing alumni and am truly honored to be recognized by our students,” said Blicharz in an email. “In fact, being recognized by students is the highest honor I can aspire to, since educating students and developing tomorrow’s leaders is what it’s all about.”

“I feel very honored and humbled by the award… It was truly amazing,” said Mitchell, who added that after being informed of the honor, she and Blicharz received letters of congratulations from President Barbara R. Gitenstein. “… I’ve had a long-term relationship with the faculty and the students, so it’s been a very enjoyable year.”

According to Mitchell, she was originally nominated as “faculty of the year” but the “unique” circumstances of this year led to a change in her and Blicharz’s positions.

Because Susan Bakewell-Sachs, the former dean of the School of Nursing, Health and Exercise Science, was moved up to the position of interim provost after the former provost left the College, Blicharz, the former chair of the department, became interim dean in July 2011.

Mitchell is acting as interim chair, filling Blicharz’s previous position. In addition to her work as chair, she said she is still fulfilling her other duties as nursing professor, advisor to the campus’ chapter of the Foundation for the International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC), and counselor of the campus’ Delta Nu chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), the international nursing honor society.

The two will return to their original positions in July 2012, when a new provost is chosen, said Blicharz.

“Professor Mitchell and I have been colleagues for years and are very committed to students and nursing education,” said Blicharz, who added that, as dean, she has been working to “continuously develop and support the School of Nursing Health and Exercise Science and to ensure that the students get an excellent education.”

In addition to their long history as colleagues, Blicharz and Mitchell’s success as a team during this “unique year” has another component, said Mitchell.

“We’ve worked as a team for over 30 years and we’re friends,” she said.

From left to right: Alex Varghese, Tom Defrancesco, Professor Susan Hume, Samantha Drofiak, James Puglia and Rick Guardino

EWING, NJ… In a first for TCNJ, finance junior Alex Varghese and finance seniors Tom Defrancesco, Samantha Drofiak, James Puglia and Rick Guardino of the School of Business apprenticed as financial analysts in a top-level competition with over 20 area schools.  Working with Professor Susan Hume as their coach, the team developed and presented a financial buy recommendation on $ 1 billion technology firm Micros to high-profile Wall Street experts. The Research Challenge gave the team apprentice-style learning experience in analyst research, report writing, and ethics. As analysts-in-training, the five students received intensive training during the fall, winter and spring sessions, connected with a professional research analyst mentor, analyzed a public company using the techniques and tools of financial analysis and valuation, and traveled to New York to present and defend their recommendations to a panel of experts.  Each student found the competition a dynamic, important learning experience.

“Governor Christie’s proposed increases to student financial aid and support programs, including significant increases to programs for students with the greatest financial need, will provide critical assistance. It is also gratifying to have higher education made a priority in the proposed budget and recognized for the vital role it plays in determining the quality of New Jersey’s future.”

From left: Blizard, Rindt, Lazzaro, Thompson, Patel, Roller, Feldman and Boyle

EWING, NJ… This winter break, eight nursing majors donated toothbrushes and other medical supplies, repainted a clinic, taught children about healthy habits, and gave vaccinations — and made a “world” of difference while doing it.

That is because these students spent Jan. 8 – 15 volunteering in El Salvador through coordination with The Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC), a national organization which focuses on providing health care for children in medical clinics in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, Uganda, and India.

The volunteers ― sophomore Colleen Rindt; juniors Amanda Blizard, Alison Lazzaro, Ankita Patel, Brielle Roller, and Kelly Thompson; and seniors Brittany Boyle and Nicole Feldman ― did all of their own planning and fundraising in order to volunteer in the country, where influenza, and other easily treatable diseases like bronchitis and diarrhea, can be life-threatening.

Now several months after their trip, the women describe the experience as eye-opening, and their story has touched the nursing community.

“I have seen pictures and heard amazing stories,” said Norma Brown, clinical learning resources coordinator and advisor to the Student Nursing Association (SNA) who helped the students plan the trip. “The fact that the supplies which the students took with them that had been donated by vendors and some purchased with money from SNA were so abundant that the facility needed to rent another van to transport it from the airport was just heart-warming.”

According to the women, while abroad, the FIMRC had them work in a clinic in the town of Las Delicias with a community health nurse named Morena, as well as in one of the country’s government clinics.

While in Las Delicias, Morena sometimes led them on hikes through mountains to all the isolated homes in the rural village in order to conduct door-to-door checkups and prenatal exams, administer medications and wound care (including several broken bones), and give vaccinations.

However, in addition to the mountains of El Salvador, the students overcame many other obstacles in order to make the trip a reality.

According to Susan Mitchell, assistant professor and chair of the Nursing Department,  while “a lot of students can do an international experience, (nursing) students are so bound by coursework, they end up being five-year or six-year students if they try” to go abroad.

While College students have participated in global health trips in the past through the College’s chapter of FIMRC (including trips to Peru, Costa Rica, and El Salvador), this trip was the first global volunteer mission organized exclusively by students from the College’s nursing department without coordination with the College’s FIMRC chapter, said Mitchell, who is also the advisor of the college’s FIMRC chapter.

“This was a really good example of students being assertive enough to say ‘We’re gonna go’ and being assertive enough to do it,” said Mitchell, who helped the group fundraise.

Mitchell also explained that through the campus chapter, “whoever does the most fundraising gets to go, so there would have been no guarantee that all eight students could go.”

Intent on sticking together, the students “just decided to do it on their own,” she said.

After the students applied to FIMRC’s Global Health Volunteer Program, they were placed in El Salvador but were “ready to volunteer anywhere” that the organization put them, said Patel, SNA’s Director of Multicultural Awareness, who proposed the idea for the trip at a general meeting of the SNA at the beginning of the year.

The students pose with local women.

While the FIMRC organized the students’ transportation, housing and meals, it did not cover the cost of the airfare and the program, $1,811 each. According to the students, the cost was partially covered by a financial gift from the College’s Delta Nu Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International, the nursing honor society, in addition to gifts from family and friends. Also alleviating costs are the students’ joint fundraising efforts, including sales of T-shirts and Joe Corbi’s food, and a $1,050 contribution by the Student Finance Board.

The SNA also allocated $1,000 for supplies and donations — such as prenatal vitamins, soap and hand sanitizer, and medications to combat upper respiratory illnesses — that are urgently needed in El Salvador, said Lazzarro, SNA’s Director of Professional Development,

“They brought suitcases and suitcases of supplies, dentist contributions, lab-testing equipment, toothbrushes, mouthwash, Band-Aids. They even had little bears, stuffed animals that they gave to the kids,” said Mitchell, who spoke with some of the women after the trip.

According to the students, they hope that news of their trip will make other nursing majors realize that an abroad experience is a possible and fulfilling option.

“It would be great if this became an annual trip for nursing students,” said Rindt.  “Eventually, I hope that this trip can either be incorporated into a nursing course or somehow included in the nursing curriculum so students can receive credit from TCNJ.”

Lazzaro said that in addition to spreading cultural awareness, the students plan to use the trip to promote the College’s nursing department and encourage students to “step out of the basement of Loser Hall,” where nursing classes are located.

Patel added that the group plans on creating a poster to present at New Jersey Nursing Students, Inc. (NJNS) Convention on February 16– 17 to promote awareness of their trip.

Mitchell also said that Boyle and Feldman will be students in her public health class and will be presenting a project on their trip at the end of the semester.

“Brittany Boyle and Nicole Feldman who are seniors are using this trip as a way of demonstrating women’s health issues in really a third-world country,” she said.

Like several of the other students who want the trip to become an annual event, Roller said that, if possible, she would “definitely like to return to El Salvador in the future.”

“I had an amazing time and an incredible experience.  I would love the opportunity to work with FIMRC again because I was able to interact and learn from some amazing people,” she said in an email. “The wonderful interactions with the nurses and doctors involved with FIMRC made the trip that much more fulfilling.”

“Doing a medical mission abroad is a way for nursing students to gain clinical experience in diverse situations,” said Thompson in an email. “I am so grateful to have had this opportunity, and travel to a country that is not as fortunate as ours,” she added. “…I truly felt like our group made a difference in Las Delicias, and I can only imagine the impact we could make if we were registered nurses.”

For now, the students are happy to have seen their dreams of going abroad come true and to have used their College education to make a global impact.

“This is something I’ve dreamed about doing since my freshman year at TCNJ. I joined (the) Student Nurses’ Association and was elected the director of multicultural awareness during my sophomore year,” said Patel. “…We have learned so much in nursing school… It was time to embrace that knowledge and really make a difference.”

“Our trip expenses went directly towards supporting the clinic, and I like to think that our presence alone gave the community hope. It shows the citizens that people do want to help, and that those who are able to, will,” said Blizard.

Several women recalled one event in particular as the “most memorable.”

Arriving at a small house with an aluminum roof up in the mountains, the women were each quickly offered a handshake and a welcoming hug by an older man in the family about to receive their vaccines.

“They were excited for us to and help them prevent disease and care for them. It was incredibly gratifying to have a direct impact on the family and use the Spanish I learned to communicate with them,” Lazzaro recalled.

Carolina Resende is among the approximately 650 Brazilian undergraduate students arriving in the United States to study at U.S. campuses with funding from the Brazilian Government’s “Science Without Borders Program.” As a part of the program, Carolina will study for two at TCNJ, and will take part in a summer internship.

The Science Without Borders Program, announced in August 2011, provides scholarships to undergraduate students from Brazil for one year of study at colleges and universities in the United States. Scholarships are being given primarily to students in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Students in the program will return to Brazil to complete their degrees.

Kevin Fay, TCNJ assistant director of admissions, said, “The College is proud to host one of ‘the best students from Brazil’ in this first wave of only 650 Brazilian college students pursuing a year of study in the STEM fields at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. A successful collaboration between Admissions, the Center for Global Engagement and the Schools of Science and Engineering contributed to Carolina’s eventual arrival last month.  While Carolina takes advantage of this unique opportunity to experience the quality of TCNJ’s academic programs, we recognize that domestic students here at the College can also benefit from interactions with an international student in a living/learning environment.  Given the early signs of Carolina’s acclimation to the campus community, we are hopeful that more Brazilian students will be matched with the College in the fall.”

This undergraduate scholarship program, administered by the Institute of International Education, is part of the Brazilian government’s larger initiative to grant 100,000 scholarships for the best students from Brazil to study abroad at the world’s best universities. The program is sponsored by the scholarship foundation of Brazil’s Ministry of Education, Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). IIE has been working closely with CAPES and with colleges and universities across the United States, including the College, to place the students in US study programs that best meet their academic needs.

“We are pleased to be partnering with the Government of Brazil and with the U.S. host campuses to implement this important program,” said IIE’s President and CEO Allan E. Goodman. “At a time when Brazil’s economy is expanding rapidly, and Brazil and the United States are forging unprecedented ties in trade, energy and scientific development, we look to higher education as another area where our two countries should seek much stronger cooperation.”

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