The changing face of nursing
A new generation challenges the narrative about who is a nurse
By Nicole Sweeney Etter
In high school, Christian Villanueva assumed that a community college was his likely path.
Then Juanita “Terrie” Garcia called. She invited him to see Marquette University — and that simple invite changed his life.
“She took the time to reassure my parents,” says Villanueva, a second-generation Mexican-American and the first in his family to attend college.
Garcia took time to show Villanueva’s parents around and speak in their language.
“That really threw me,” Villanueva said. “It was instrumental in getting me to come to Marquette because having made a connection with her and having that sense of trust were very important.”
Garcia’s role building connections and trust is part of Project BEYOND, which stands for Building Ethnic Youth Opportunities for Nursing Diversity. The Marquette College of Nursing program is designed to increase diversity in the nursing workforce
The program kicks off with an intensive four-day summer program to introduce incoming freshmen to campus. The 15–18 freshmen who join the program each year soon became a tight-knit family.
The program also includes workshops and networking events throughout the year; mentorship by upperclassmen and working professionals; customized assessments and plans; field trips to local hospitals; and access to resources such as iPads and laptops.
Although the expiration of its federal funding in 2014 dealt the program a setback — forcing a one-year suspension of most of its activities, even as peer tutoring and mentorship offerings continued as volunteer efforts — this summer brought good news. The federal Health Resources and Services Administration notified elated faculty and staff in the college that a new grant in excess of $600,000 would be on its way.
As a result, Project BEYOND is not only up and running again, but expanding in significant ways. A new partnership with the Carmen Schools of Science & Technology in Milwaukee introduces middle- and high-school students to the life-saving roles nurses play and aims to develop a “pipeline” of diverse future nurses to study at Marquette.
It also targets the social determinants of health directly through work on solutions to a key community health issue identified through listening sessions with students and their families.
Back on campus, Project Beyond 2, as it’s now officially called, has been bolstered by new funds for stipends and scholarships, providing a limited number of students up to $10,000 annually to help defray college costs.
“That’s huge for our students and could play a role in students’ success,” says Garcia, who is also a doctoral student in the college. The funds will offset some of the costs that can loom as hurdles to students from underrepresented and diverse backgrounds, easing financial strains that make it hard to continue.
Retention of minority nursing students already climbed from just 15 to 25 percent previously to nearly 100 percent after the program began in 2007. Many of these students also became McNair Scholars, engaging in rigorous research projects through a federally funded program that prepares them for graduate school.
Diversity is a priority of the college for good reason: Only 6.4 percent of the state’s registered nurses are racial/ethnic minorities, according to a 2013 report from the Wisconsin Center for Nursing.
“We know that patients and families want to be taken care of by people like them, and we have a pretty non-diverse nursing workforce in this country,” says the college’s former dean Dr. Margaret Faut Callahan, whose support was key to the program’s growth.
“In a highly diverse community like Milwaukee, addressing that mismatch is important from a workforce diversity standpoint,” she says. “But equally important is our Jesuit tradition, which is to provide educational opportunities to students from underserved backgrounds so they can live meaningful lives.”
The college is also becoming more diverse in other ways. About one-quarter of the incoming class for the generalist master’s program is male, a new record for the college.
“I think more and more men are seeing that nursing is a highly valued profession in ways that weren’t apparent 10, 15 or 20 years ago,” Callahan says. “There’s still a stigma there, and I give our guys so much credit because they overcome that. We have to continue to keep changing the narrative of who is a nurse.”
A recently created college committee on diversity and inclusivity will start meeting this fall. All signs point to that group of students, faculty and staff welcoming efforts like Project BEYOND and seeking ways to learn from them.
The college has long worked to prepare students of all backgrounds to better serve an increasingly diverse patient population. The college’s Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare Center for Clinical Simulation includes Hispanic and African-American models, and all undergraduate nursing students are required to take a Culture and Health course.
Cultural sensitivity is key to being an effective nurse, says Dr. Leona VandeVusse, an associate professor and director of Project BEYOND. “It’s about being culturally humble and being an excellent listener,” she says.
Those lessons were helpful to Jamarrah Foster, Nurs ’13, who participated in Project BEYOND and the McNair Scholars program while on campus.
“Culture was always brought up when we had our clinicals,” Foster says. “I remember working with Hispanic patients and Jehovah’s Witnesses during my clinical rotations.” Now an OB nurse at the Wheaton Franciscan–St. Joseph Campus in Milwaukee, Foster works with a wide range of patients, including some who are Orthodox Jewish, Muslim and Somali.
“You have to be able to understand where the patients are coming from and things that are affecting their health. Being able to speak to them in their own native language and being able to help them feel comfortable can make a big difference,” Villanueva says. “If we have nurses who can relate to a variety of patients, then we’re going to be able to grow stronger as a profession. Diversity is a beautiful thing.”
Villanueva’s initial visit hosted by Garcia was the first of many memorable Marquette moments. He soon fell in love with nursing and joined the McNair Scholars; researched lifetime trauma exposure for recently deported women with professor Dr. Ruth Ann Belknap; and presented his research at several conferences, including one in Mexico.
He also won a national Gilman Scholarship that funded a summer clinical experience in Peru and volunteered in Nicaragua with the Global Medical Brigades.
One of his proudest accomplishments was being named Marquette’s Outstanding Sophomore of the Year, and he was recently selected by nursing faculty for the Berens Award, which recognizes a senior for outstanding academic achievement, clinical performance, moral conduct and commitment to professional development.
Now he’s looking forward to working in a critical-care setting before starting his doctoral degree. Eventually, he hopes to do policy work.
“One of the most powerful things I’ve learned in nursing school is the variety of roles that a nurse can do,” Villanueva says. “I really enjoy the social activism role, and I want to be an advocate for the community’s health.”
Foster, who plans to return to school to become a certified nurse midwife or women’s health nurse practitioner, is also grateful for her Marquette nursing experience. “I’m really proud of graduating. I know it sounds simple, but it’s true,” she says. “I tried my hardest. Going to Marquette forced me to become a better person and a better nurse.”
