The 2024 Foundation Scholarship, Award, and Grant deadline is June 1. These opportunities can make a major difference in the life of a nurse educator, and here is a portion of a 2023 recipient’s story.
“While finishing my MSN, I was approached by a patient’s family
member who said she thought I would be a great educator. Honestly, I had never considered teaching, but I was ready for a challenge. After graduating, I was offered a teaching position at the Technical College of the Lowcountry (yep, my alma mater). Five years passed and I moved into the nursing program director position. From the time I started in academia, I knew I wanted the CNE designation. For me, the CNE symbolizes being the best of the best in nursing education. Unfortunately, I found it cost-prohibitive and put that goal on the back burner. Then the opportunity to apply for the Castlebranch Professional Development Scholarship came, and I was so thrilled to be a recipient!! I used the scholarship to purchase various study materials and to pay for the exam. I found the exam to very rigorous and thorough, more so than I predicted.
Now that I can use the CNE designation, it speaks volumes for what can be accomplished no matter your starting point in nursing. My background and upbringing were a barrier to being successful, but the ADN opportunity at my community college paved the way. I still live in my small rural community and seek out opportunities to tell my story to those who may face similar circumstances: no money, poor support systems, and unfair labels. WE CAN BE SUCCESSFUL no matter where we start. What matters is where we finish and how we help the next ones in line behind us.”
Vandy Amason is the Nursing Program Director at Low Country Technical College in Beaufort, South Carolina.
Professional Identity in Nursing (PIN) is a new mindset born out of grassroots “think tank” research that is now a standard of curriculum in nursing programs. Both ACEN and CNEA have added language in their standards mandating the inclusion of PIN into nursing curricula. The International Society for Professional Identity in Nursing (ISPIN) was established in 2018, following years of research identifying PIN domains. Those domains are values and ethics, knowledge, nurse as a leader, and professional comportment. Not to be confused with professionalism, which implies things such as dress code or showing up to work on time, PIN is defined as “a sense of oneself, and about others, that is influenced by characteristics, norms, and values of the nursing discipline, resulting in an individual thinking, acting, and feeling like a nurse” (Joseph & Godfrey, 2023).
to Attend the OADN Convention!
discount per student when paying at the published (standard one-time payment) rate for the Trajecsys Centralized Clinical Recordkeeping system.
“The Trajecsys application and support team provides an exceptional and stress-free experience. The team engaged with us throughout our meetings and tailored the application to meet our specific requirements. The application is intuitive and easy to learn while providing complete transparency between the faculty and students regarding their weekly performance and overall progress. Our faculty and students have embraced the program.