Page 5 - University of Martland Nursing Forum - Winter 2017

NEWS
Teacher of the Year
It’s one thing to teach. It’s quite another to teach teachers.
“I think preparing teachers is a some-
what different responsibility because you want them to be able to provide their students with the best learning experience possible,” says Louise S. Jenkins, PhD ’85, MS ’81, RN, FAHA, ANEF, professor and director of the University of Maryland School of Nursing’s Institute for Educators. For 16 years, she has focused on the changing role of technology in health professions education and on various aspects of addressing the nursing faculty shortage by preparing nurses for teaching roles in academic and clinical settings. In recognition of her work, she was named the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s 2016 Teacher of the Year during the University’s annual Founders Week celebration in early November.
In 2004, Jenkins co-founded the Institute for Educators, which under
her leadership has received more than
$7 million in grant funding and has contributed to a 63 percent increase in
the number of new Maryland nursing school graduates sitting for boards and becoming licensed in the state. Jenkins also co-developed and leads the Teaching in
Nursing and Health Professions Certificate program, in which more than 800 students have taken graduate-level courses to develop essential skills for teaching current and future nurses.
“There’s an ongoing shortage of nursing faculty, and we’re facing another big one within the next five years-plus because
of an anticipated large number of faculty retiring,” Jenkins says. “The recognition of the importance of preparing oneself
as a teacher has really been brought to the attention of potential educators, and the institute does a lot of that.”
While Jenkins began her career as
a clinical nurse, contributing to the development of one of the first in-patient cardiac rehabilitation programs, she came to the School of Nursing to earn her master’s and PhD degrees. Following
a post-doctoral fellowship as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Nurse Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco, she held a named research chair at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before returning to UMSON in 1996 to direct the School’s PhD and master’s programs. Along the way, she also co-conceived and directed the Clinical Education and Evaluation Standardized Patient Laboratory, which
offers students the opportunity to practice skills and receive feedback from faculty, standardized patients, and video recordings of their work in the lab. Now, Jenkins teaches online classes in the certificate program.
“I thought when I taught in the class- room that it was the best possible learning environment,” she says. “My classrooms have been in schools, in universities, even on an island teaching patients how to
do their own hemodialysis, just a lot of different settings. But the core of what you’re doing always comes back to the essentials, and that’s what we really strive to emphasize in the institute.”
And as she continues to teach, she continues to experience the joy that fueled her Teacher of the Year honor. “The things that I’m receiving an award for are still going on,” she says. “Really, I feel like I’m still being honored. It’s been really fun—
a wonderful experience!”
—Giordana Segneri
A Piece of the Pi
News from UMSON’s Sigma Theta Tau International Pi Chapter
One of Pi Chapter’s strategic goals for 2016-17 is to increase outreach to community nurse leaders. On Oct. 26, Pi Chapter inducted 12 nurse leaders
at Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC), and 10 inactive Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) members at AAMC renewed their memberships with the chapter. A spring professional development program at AAMC will be open to all Pi Chapter members.
A few of the newest Pi Chapter inductees pose for a selfie following the induction ceremony in Baltimore on Nov. 14.
Rebecca Wiseman, PhD, RN, associate professor, chair of UMSON’s programs at the Universities at Shady Grove (USG), and Pi Chapter president, presented a
poster at STTI’s Leadership Connections conference in Indianapolis, Sept. 17-21. While at the conference, she volunteered in the career center and consulted
with membership services on chapter activities.
Fall and spring inductions have been scheduled earlier in the semesters
to give new inductees opportunities
to participate in chapter-sponsored activities prior to graduation. In November, 105 students and nurse leaders were inducted into the chapter at USG and in Baltimore.
—Rebecca Wiseman
UNIVERSITYOFMARYLANDSCHOOLOFNURSING 3
KEVIN NASH
CHRIS HARTLOVE