It is clear, even in an online setting, that Nuzhat demonstrates a passion for nursing education. She incorporates current events, articles, and recent news stories into her classes as a means to draw her students into the subject. She gives meaningful and helpful feedback on assignments that has assisted students in other classes as well. Despite not living stateside, Nuzhat engages her students by doing live Zoom sessions which are clearly in the middle of the night. She is unphased by the time difference and always smiling and happy. She is approachable and easily reached. When a student has a question or a problem with an assignment she has been fair and quick to respond and resolve the issue. Nuzhat treats her students with respect. She shows this by being timely in her responses to grading and communications. She is fair but kind. She shares and models her sense of curiosity which leads students to also become curious and ask questions.
Mary Pat helped develop collaborative working relationships with students by showing interest in their career paths, previous experience, and future aspirations. She brings in a guest speaker to share about policy work and created space for everyone to speak and ask questions. When approached with questions about topics she shares additional findings from her review. Mary Pat shows patience with frequent communication about assignments. She is flexible in meeting times over Zoom that are outside her office hours to overcome student groups' work schedules. Mary Pat is responsive, available, and patient and shows great humility with her students. After learning that some students were somewhat discouraged from finding most positions in nursing education preferred PhD or DNP positions, Mary Pat found articles about MSN positions that might be options and posted them to articles of interest for review. She expanded assignments to include a role analysis of education and administration so students could explore roles in alignment with their education focus.
Kristen demonstrates a genuine interest and caring about her student’s goals. She is often one of their biggest cheerleaders and sources of support. While mentoring a DNP student, Kristen encouraged them to submit an abstract for the Western Institut of Nursing, based on the student's DNP project. Up until that point, the student thought of the project as something that they wanted to do to help nurses in their unit and as a pathway to a DNP. They had never really thought it would be something worthy of a conference poster. To both of their delights, the abstract was accepted. Kristen even flew to Portland, OR to support the student on the day they presented their poster at the WIN conference. Kristen never hesitates to meet with her DNP students on weekends or evenings to help with their projects. When she gives constructive criticism it comes from a place of love and caring. She has introduced her then several faculty members that she believes they would work well with to advance their learning and goals to make the greatest impact on our community.
Smita is full of nursing knowledge and is excited to share it with her students. She caters to her students learning styles with notes, videos, and funny mnemonics. One time when learning a Parkinson's drug she sang a Beyoncé song and the whole class remembered the name of the drug. Smita goes the extra mile for her students. After back-to-back exams, she brought the class snacks because she didn't want any students to get hungry. She always shows integrity in every interaction she is involved in. She is also very patient. This semester she saw that her previous students needed help in a class she was not teaching. She gave them a mini-lesson so they could understand the material better. During class, she will ask how well the students know the topic from previous levels and offer a refresher course. She also offers help after tests and will meet with students one on one to understand the material better and get better studying strategies because she wants her students to succeed.
Vicky knows what it's like to struggle through nursing school and is willing to share her experience with her students. She reminds them that they too will be successful nurses often reminding them that their failures will never define their achievements. Vicky does not want to make her class stressful for students and is always willing to find ways to help all her students grow and learn. She brings guest speakers to her classes so that students have outside voices helping them through their studies. Vicky encourages her students every day. They know she wants them to do well. She is so friendly to every student and her students feel very comfortable when approaching her because she is a very encouraging person.
Director of Alumni Relations
Marlena Bermel, MBA
College of Nursing
1650 University Blvd, Office 3603
1 University of New Mexico