CHP Dean Suzanne Mellon

Dear Alumni,

We recently celebrated graduation this past Saturday at the University, and this time of year always causes me to reflect on the graduates we are sending out into the community to address the strong need for more health professionals. It was particularly gratifying to see the numbers of new Nursing graduates who will be entering the workforce this summer (total of 126).

In addition, we had graduate Nursing students in the Family Nurse Practitioner and Health Systems Management programs, BSN-completion students, as well as undergraduate and graduate Health Services Administration graduates. In August, we will be graduating more Physician Assistant students, and last December we sent a whole cadre of new nurse anesthetists out to serve in the community.

Our enrollment continues to be very robust and strong, and we still retain the auspicious title of the largest college in the University!  We have already filled a majority of our classes for fall 2008, with openings still available in HSA undergraduate and graduate programs and Health Systems Management. We are welcoming a new class of 80+ accelerated Nursing students, along with 100 pre-licensure students beginning in September in Detroit and 50 in Grand Rapids.

Our 5-year accelerated Physician Assistant program is still very popular with enrollments exceeded for the upcoming fall class, and the recruitment for the "business of health care" for the undergraduate Health Services Administration program is gaining traction to recruit more traditional undergraduates.

In January, we started a new graduate track in the McAuley School of Nursing in Clinical Nurse Leadership (CNL). This is a new role that is increasingly being valued across the country, and we are the first in the region to implement this new graduate offering. A unique feature of the CNL role is that it is done in partnership with health systems. We have launched it initially with the Trinity Health system, first in Grand Rapids with another cohort to begin in fall in the southeast Michigan region. We are also in discussion with several other health systems to implement the role. You can read more about it here.

Assistant Professor of Nursing Tricia Thomas is the coordinator for this new track, and brings a wealth of experience in quality and leadership. Another initiative we are working on is to develop a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. A task force has been working on this during the entire year which will build on the current excellence of our advanced nursing practice programs, including Family Nurse Practitioner and Nurse Anesthesia.

This year, continuing to roll out our Strategic Plan, we have made excellent progress in several areas:

• continued strength and growth in enrollment,
• investment and continued development in faculty scholarship and research, and
• increased technology integration throughout the curricula in all programs.

Our faculty have been presenting and publishing at a higher rate this year, which is detailed in this newsletter in "Faculty news." We have showcased just a few of the faculty research areas that are occurring in our College. Read about their stories and the contributions they are making to improving health care in our region.

More and more faculty are completing their doctoral degrees or are at candidacy, and are continuing to make significant differences in direct provision of health care in our region. We are also moving forward with our business plan to integrate more simulation technology into health professions education. This is a key aspect of our development efforts as we plan to develop a simulation learning center, along with a large physical assessment lab to accommodate the increases in our enrollment. Our advancement director, Nancy Maier, has this as a major focus as we move into the future.

I want to acknowledge the Alumni of the Year from our College who were recognized at Honors Convocation in April. They exemplify the mission of our institution and continue to make significant differences in the community. The alumni we recognized included: Sr. Bernadette Frank, RSM, Nursing; Marilyn Bachelor, Health Services Administration; Scott Thompson, Physician Assistant; Jeff Bounsall, Nurse Anesthesia; and Linda Torr, Allied Health programs. Their achievements are quite notable and are featured in this newsletter.

I want to thank all our alumni for the support that you continue to provide to our College that allows us to provide financial support for student scholarships, investment in our programs and our faculty, along with the many alumni who precept our students in clinical and administrative settings that provides invaluable education for our students. You are critical to our continued success. As alumni, you can be proud of the strong tradition of excellence that you have set for the next generation of health professionals!

Suzanne Mellon
Dean, College of Health Professions
McAuley School of Nursing