Robinson is an assistant professor of nursing at CSUSM specializing in hospice and palliative care. She has been a board-certified member since 2011. Her scholarship promotes comprehensive care for critically ill patients and their families.

Kohlbry, a professor emerita, is a former director of university relations and research at the CSU Shiley Haynes Institute for Palliative Care. She also has significant experience in curriculum development and putting palliative care education into practice across academic fields.

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs
ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

This spring, Clerihan graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and she's planning to launch her own construction billing business in the community she now calls home. She credits her professors at CSUSM at Temecula for encouraging her to pursue her educational and entrepreneurial dreams.

“I was never that student who enjoyed school, but at CSUSM at Temecula, I found myself on the dean’s list and looking forward to going to class,” Clerihan said. “My parents were amazed by the change in me.” 

Her story was highlighted by CSUSM President Ellen Neufeldt at “The Power of Us” Southwest Riverside County Community Breakfast on June 30. The event brought together local business, government, education and community leaders to explore how partnerships are shaping the region’s educational and economic future. 

Sponsored by the Pechanga Band of Indians, the event was emceed by CSUSM Foundation Board directors Alisha Wilkins and Esther Phahla, both Temecula residents and local business owners with deep ties to the region. 

Before Neufeldt took the stage, Riverside County Third District Supervisor Chuck Washington reflected on the partnership that has shaped CSUSM’s presence in Southwest Riverside County. 

“It started with a simple but ambitious idea: bringing expanded higher education opportunities closer to the families of Southwest Riverside County,” Washington said. “Cal State San Marcos has listened to our communities, understood our workforce needs and invested in programs that reflect our local priorities.”  

Meeting Students Where They Are 

CSUSM established its Temecula campus in 2008 and has expanded to include two locations, with programs in nursing, software engineering, teacher credentialing and business administration. That commitment received a major boost in 2024 when Riverside County invested $5.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to enhance technology, equipment and academic programs.  

Today, more than 20% of CSUSM’s nearly 17,000 students come from Riverside County. Students attend classes on the university’s main campus in San Marcos, at CSUSM’s Temecula locations, online or through a combination of locations. 

Expanding access to higher education is central to CSUSM’s mission of advancing social mobility. Last fall, the university again was recognized as the nation’s top university for social mobility by CollegeNET, reflecting its success in helping students improve their economic opportunities through earning a degree. 

“Beyond the ranking, social mobility is a student like Alyssa, who thought she would have to drop out and instead earned her business degree,” Neufeldt said. “It's a first-generation student becoming an engineer. A working parent becoming a nurse. A transfer student becoming a teacher. That's what social mobility looks like.” 

Collaborating Across the Region 

In her remarks, Neufeldt emphasized that expanding access to higher education requires collaboration among schools, colleges, employers and community partners. 

She highlighted the university's participation in Riverside County's Direct Admission initiative, the first countywide partnership of its kind with the California State University system, as well as CSUSM's Alliance partnerships with more than two dozen school districts and tribal nations. 

“The message to students is simple,” Neufeldt said. “You belong here. You can do this. College is not something that happens to other people. It is for you.” 

Aligning Education with Workforce Needs 

Neufeldt also showcased several programs developed in response to workforce needs identified by employers throughout Southwest Riverside County. 

Among them is an accelerated software engineering pathway created in partnership with MSJC, Temecula Valley Unified School District and Murrieta Valley Unified School District. The innovative model allows students to begin coursework in high school, earn college credit through MSJC and complete a CSUSM bachelor's degree on an accelerated timeline. The program is now expanding to include Lake Elsinore Unified School District. 

The university is also strengthening healthcare pathways. CSUSM produces more nurses than any other campus in the California State University system and has graduated nearly 4,000 nurses over the past decade. The university is developing a concurrent nursing agreement with MSJC that would allow students to earn their RN and BSN degrees simultaneously. 

“A skilled workforce is essential to the economic vitality of this region, and we are working conscientiously with our education partners and community leaders to create and deliver the right mix of programs that meet the needs of these communities,” said Godfrey Gibbison, CSUSM’s dean of Extended Learning and associate vice president for international programs.  

Additional programs under development include integrated studies, early childhood education and clinical laboratory science, a high-demand healthcare profession identified by regional employers as one of their most difficult positions to fill. 

“Every one of these programs starts with the same question,” Neufeldt said. “What does this region need? And how can we help meet that need?” 

Looking Ahead 

Neufeldt noted that CSUSM's work in Southwest Riverside County continues to evolve, with plans to further expand into MSJC University Center. 

"This gathering represents something that is a hallmark of Southwest Riverside County: the belief that progress happens through partnership," she said. "Real change happens when we work together." 

For students like Clerihan, those opportunities can be life-changing: a degree, a business and a future in the community she loves. 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The program began as an idea from Marilyn Huerta, the college's marketing, communications and engagement specialist. Huerta envisioned creating a student-led leadership and communications team to highlight the work and impact of CEHHS programs. She helped develop the program and guided the launch of its first group of student ambassadors.

The inaugural team includes four students who are helping expand the college’s visibility while building professional skills that will support their future careers.

Ariana Saenz hosts the college’s new podcast series, “CEHHS Unplugged,” in which she interviews health and education professionals about their backgrounds, programs they teach, career pathways and words of wisdom.

“Through the ‘CEHHS Unplugged’ podcast and the ambassador program, I’m proud to help amplify student voices and showcase the incredible community within our college,” Saenz said.

Daniel Lopez launched the CEHHS Student & Success Story Series, producing written profiles that showcase the journeys and accomplishments of CEHHS students and alumni.

Serving as the team’s lead ambassador, Natalya Taseveki helps coordinate student engagement efforts and supports events and activities across the college, including programming connected to Scholars in Wellness and Innovation Fast-Track (SWIFT) Health Programs, kinesiology, human development, social work, education, nursing, speech-language pathology and public health.

The team’s digital presence is led by Audrie Smith, who started the college’s TikTok account and helps manage CEHHS social media platforms, sharing content that highlights events, fundraisers, student life and college achievements.

The ambassadors support a wide range of initiatives across the college. They assist the CEHHS dean, Jennifer Ostergren, during events honoring students who earned dean’s list recognition and participate in outreach and recruitment activities such as Cougar Blue Day and Discover CSUSM.

They also contribute to campuswide efforts such as Giving Day and Cougar Crowdfunding. Last semester, they hosted a student engagement “Giving Tree” event to encourage philanthropy and community support.

Beyond large events, the ambassadors attend student organization meetings and departmental activities to photograph and document student experiences across CEHHS. The team collaborates with the college’s Committee for Inclusivity, Diversity and Equity (CIDE) to support outreach and networking opportunities for students.

Participation in the program also emphasizes professional development. Through the CSUSM Career Center, the ambassadors are building career portfolios, strengthening résumé and interview skills, participating in workshops and attending the university’s Etiquette Dinner experience.

In addition, they remain active across campus through initiatives with Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) and the university’s Orientation Team.

Huerta continues to mentor and supervise the team members as they develop leadership and communication skills while serving as ambassadors for the college.

College leaders hope the program will continue to grow in the coming years, giving more students opportunities to gain real-world experience while helping share the stories and impact of CEHHS programs.

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The Registered Nursing Organization uses databases from nursing programs of all degree levels and specializations across the U.S. to create its rankings. Rankings follow criteria from both graduate and undergraduate programs, including the number and variety of nursing programs offered by the institution as well as the ratio of total nursing program completions to total program completions awarded by the institution.

These rankings provide students with the information needed to make the right choice when applying for nursing school. CSUSM prioritizes creating an environment for all nursing students to grow so they feel prepared when stepping into future healthcare jobs.

The Registered Nursing Organization aims to promote excellence in nursing by enabling future and current nurses with the education and employment resources needed to succeed.

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs
ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

“From a young age, I helped my family assimilate into our new environment, filling in gaps wherever I was needed as a first-generation Mexican American.” said Chambers, now a Master of Social Work (MSW) student at Cal State San Marcos. “I became their translator, doctor, lawyer and social worker. These experiences shaped why I want to do this work.”

She carried that sense of purpose into every role she has served – including preschool teacher, nanny and YMCA educator – and she saw firsthand how communication gaps between parents and schools can affect a child’s success. 

“That made me want to be part of the solution,” she said. “I want to help families and children feel supported.”

Now in graduate school – something that once felt out of reach as the first in her family to attend college – Chambers recently took part in an innovative Interprofessional Education (IPE) event hosted by the CSU Shiley Haynes Institute for Palliative Care, which is part of a larger palliative care initiative funded by the Hearst Foundations.

Palliative care brings together a team of health professionals to provide holistic treatment for individuals with serious illnesses. IPE focuses on training students to work together in this collaborative model.

Designed by CSUSM faculty from multiple disciplines, CSUSM’s IPE program places students from nursing, kinesiology, speech-language pathology and social work together to analyze a case study and develop a comprehensive plan of care. The goal is to help students think collaboratively while gaining an authentic understanding of what teamwork looks like in real clinical settings.

“Graduate school can feel siloed since we focus on our own programs,” Chambers said. “This event brings students from multiple disciplines together under one roof to learn from each other and realize how much stronger we are when we collaborate.”

In this year’s exercise, Chambers’ team worked on a family-centered case study involving a medically complex 8-year-old boy living with his grandparents. 

“These cases remind us that families don’t exist in isolation,” she said. “When a child is struggling, it’s not just on the grandparents or the teacher. There’s a whole network of people who can help. Our job is to strengthen that network.”

“Students will be expected to collaborate with other professions when they enter practice,” said Katie Robinson, assistant professor of nursing. “But as with every other practice competency, we have to teach them why, show them how and guide them through practicing it themselves. And now that we've worked out such an effective IPE model, it's exciting to think about expanding across the campus – and beyond.”

Since spring 2023, the institute has hosted five immersive IPE days, with participation now reaching 150–200 students across the College of Education, Health and Human Services.

“Alumni from previous events have shared how this event helped shape their transition into the workforce,” said Lorene Ibbestson, a social work lecturer. “It gave them confidence in their professional abilities and a deeper appreciation for how collaboration across disciplines can create meaningful change.”

Now, thanks to a generous $200,000 grant from the Hearst Foundations, CSUSM’s IPE program will continue to grow, with plans to:

• launch a new IPE event in spring 2026 focused on health policy, including students from psychology, sociology and political science;
• build a similar IPE model at Fresno State and ultimately other CSU campuses;
• explore cross-campus collaborations with UC San Diego medical students and Clinical Pastoral Education programs.

For students like Chambers, these simulated experiences are invaluable in helping them prepare for meaningful careers.  

For CSUSM, the Hearst Foundations’ generous support not only strengthens IPE but also moves the university closer to its “Blueprint for the Future” campaign goal to raise $200 million in philanthropy and research funding.

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

“I became a hospital corpsman and was embedded in the Marines,” Jones said. “I worked in trauma bays and in field environments. I saw the best and worst of humanity. And through it all, I knew I was doing what I was meant to do – take care of people.”

Jones served for two decades, earning accolades, earning the respect of her peers and gaining the kind of experience that most civilians could only imagine. But when she retired from active duty, a different question emerged: What comes next?

“I wasn’t done serving,” she said. “I just needed to find a new way to do it.”

That calling led her to Cal State San Marcos, where she is part of the inaugural cohort of the university’s new Veterans Bachelor of Science in Nursing (VBSN) program. The program is designed specifically for veterans who, like Jones, bring a wealth of medical experience and leadership into a second career as a registered nurse.

“This is just a different kind of uniform,” Jones said. “The mission is still the same: serve with compassion, leadership and integrity.”

A New Path Built for Veterans

Jones already had earned a master’s degree in forensic science and worked for the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office in her post-military career. But something was missing.

“I missed the connection with the patients,” she said. “There’s something sacred about caring for someone when they’re vulnerable. I needed to get back to that.”

She learned about the VBSN program at CSUSM after seeing a flyer. The program immediately piqued her interest, especially its focus on supporting veterans’ transition into health care.

“When I saw the VBSN flyer, I felt like it was calling me,” Jones said. “I realized I could bring everything I’d learned in the military – trauma care, leadership, the ability to stay calm in chaos – and use it to keep helping people.”

She applied and was accepted into the spring 2025 cohort. Now, in her second semester, she’s thriving.

For U.S. Army veteran Anthony Caesar Sapinoso, the journey to the VBSN program began in high school, when he enlisted through the Army's Future Soldiers program in 2016. He served as a 68 – an Army licensed vocational nurse – and always knew he wanted to build a career in health care.

“I saw that the Army would become my foothold and way to get not only a glimpse but actual experience in the field,” Sapinoso said.

While exploring nursing schools across California, Sapinoso found CSUSM’s VBSN program somewhat serendipitously.

“I started my search from the Bay Area, where I’m originally from, and branched out. After being rejected from several programs, I was elated when I got the acceptance letter from San Marcos,” he said. “The shorter timeline to licensure and graduation also made CSUSM’s program stand out.”

Purpose-Driven Support

Designed with veterans in mind, the VBSN program offers tailored advising, peer support and a clinical curriculum that values the lived experience of those who have served. Students complete rigorous hands-on training at hospitals and health care facilities throughout the region, preparing them to sit for the NCLEX-RN licensing exam.

“Veterans possess qualities that make them exceptional nurses: leadership under pressure, teamwork and a deep understanding of trauma-informed care,” said Wendy Hansbrough, director of the School of Nursing. “The VBSN program honors their service and supports their transition into one of the most critical professions in our health care system.”

Jones says the support from faculty and peers has been key to her success.

“The transition from a corpsman to a student nurse is not always easy,” she said. “But this program was built for us. They know where we’re coming from and what we bring to the table.”

Sapinoso agrees. Now in his second semester, he admits that he felt some initial hesitation.

“I was unaware initially that most of my cohort already had a bachelor’s degree in another field, and I didn’t,” he said. “I felt some slight imposter syndrome, but that quickly disappeared once we started clinicals and skill tests. That’s where my military experience kicked in, and my confidence showed up.”

He credits the Army for shaping his holistic approach to patient care and cultural competency.

“Being in the Army was both a fun and hectic time where, despite everyone’s different backgrounds, we came together to make the best of any situation,” Sapinoso said. “That spirit of teamwork and care carries into everything I do now.”

Faculty like Matt Mincey, who teaches Fundamentals of Nursing, see the difference that veterans carry into the classroom and clinical rotations.

“Tara and her fellow veteran students bring a depth of life experience. The ability to remain calm under pressure is incredibly valuable in clinical settings,” Mincey said. “Our role as faculty is to honor that experience while challenging them to grow as professional nurses.”

A University Committed to Veterans

The VBSN program reflects CSUSM’s long-standing commitment to military-connected students.

“At CSUSM, we believe in the transformative power of education, especially when it supports students who have already given so much in service to others,” said Jennifer Ostergren, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Services. “The VBSN program is a powerful example of what happens when we create purpose-driven pathways that honor lived experience and open doors to meaningful careers.”

Jones hopes to specialize in critical care nursing and eventually work in a VA or military-affiliated hospital. Sapinoso, too, remains open to the possibilities.

“Whether in the Army or as a nurse, I’ve always wanted to be of service to others,” he said.

Looking Ahead

With an ever-growing demand for nurses, particularly those with crisis leadership and cultural competency, CSUSM’s VBSN program addresses workforce needs while cultivating the next generation of health care leaders.

Interest in the program continues to grow through veteran word-of-mouth and university outreach. The School of Nursing is actively recruiting future cohorts and remains committed to expanding access to this unique and impactful academic pathway.

For students like Jones and Sapinoso, it’s more than just a degree – it’s a calling fulfilled.

To learn more about CSUSM’s Veterans BSN program, visit www.csusm.edu/nursing or email cehhs-ss@csusm.edu.

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Reyes, a Northern California native, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in health science from Sacramento State in 2023, but knew she wanted to continue her education to pursue a career in nursing. She applied to multiple California State University schools and stumbled upon CSUSM through the Cal State Apply website.  

Though she wasn’t familiar with CSUSM, she enjoyed her CSU experience at Sac State and liked what she saw when she visited Southern California over the summer.  

However, nursing was not always Reyes’ goal.  

“I was very anti-nursing for a long time,” Reyes said. “My mom is a labor and delivery nurse, so she was planting that seed in my head. But I was like, ‘No, I’m going to do my own thing.’ ”  

But the death of Reyes’ grandmother from COVID-19 complications in early 2020 changed her perspective. 

While Reyes was familiar with health care because of her mom and through volunteer work, she never had seen it the way she did during her grandmother’s time in the hospital. 

“I firsthand saw the nurses be that connection for us in a time where we couldn’t go into the hospital,” Reyes said. 

In a time when the world was shut down and her freshmen year at Sac State was online, the connection that the nurse made with her and her family provided inspiration.  

“Seeing the connection that the nurse was able to create and help us communicate with my grandma in her last days really left a lasting impact,” Reyes said. “It made me think, ‘I want to be that kind of person for someone.’ ” 

Once Reyes started pursuing nursing, she found herself liking it more than she imagined. Through the groups of people and professors she met, she found motivation that helped her find the career she wants to pursue.  

Armildre Baez, an alumna who graduated from the ABSN program, is one of the professors whom Reyes credits for her success at CSUSM.  

“I think the way she carries herself in the hospital reinforced our learning and was very supportive,” Reyes said. 

Through the imposter syndrome that Reyes sometimes felt, Baez was there to encourage her and her fellow classmates. Reyes still gets to see Baez during her internship work at Kaiser Permanente in San Marcos, where Baez works as a progressive care unit nurse. 

“What stands out most about Audrey as a nursing student is her unwavering dedication and genuine compassion for others,” Baez said. “Her intelligence was evident in the way she grasped complex concepts and applied them thoughtfully. I am confident that Audrey will be an amazing nurse one day and will make a meaningful impact in her patients' lives." 

Being away from home for the first time has been one of Reyes’ biggest challenges while attending CSUSM. 

“I never had the classic college experience of moving away and dorming,” Reyes said. “Through going to Cal State, I got that experience and was really lucky to meet some good people here.”  

As Reyes is preparing to walk across the commencement stage in May, she is most excited for the nursing pinning ceremony. Her parents are high school sweethearts from the Philippines, where they each got their college degrees. They moved to U.S. at different times in their 20s. 

“My mom is really excited about the nursing pinning because her mom was the one who pinned her,” said Reyes, whose mom will pin her. 

After graduation, Reyes anticipates remaining in a hospital setting in medical surgical or telemetry, with an eye on eventually working in pediatrics. 

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Jonathan Jennings, one of those hundreds of fall 2024 graduates, likes to call himself a “nontraditional nontraditional” student. Not only is he 37 years old and pursuing his second degree, but unlike nearly all of the 50-odd students in his Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program cohort, he does not have an educational background in science.

Jennings, rather, graduated from UCLA 15 years ago with a degree in world arts and cultures, which is one of the only academic programs of its type in U.S. higher education. He describes it as a unorthodox fusion of dance and anthropology.

“I took everything from ballet to postmodern to African war dances to tai chi – you name it,” Jennings said. “If a culture moves in a certain way, I studied why they move that way, how it affects the way they interact with other people in their culture and how you can respectfully create your own work as an artist without disrespecting the culture.”

It's how Jennings applied his first bachelor’s and the path he took toward this second one, however, that elevates his story beyond a mere curiosity. After leaving UCLA, he fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming a professional dancer. One of his first jobs was as a performer on a Disney cruise ship for nine months, providing on-board entertainment through a medley of shows.

Jennings parlayed that opportunity into one that was significantly longer and somehow even more exotic. He worked for much of the next eight years as a dancer at Tokyo Disneyland. Assigned to the wildly popular, Tokyo-specific stage show “One Man’s Dream II: The Magic Lives On,” which featured humans performing alongside Mickey Mouse and many other classic Disney characters, Jennings danced five times a day, five days a week for a total of more than 8,000 shows.

“It made for a great icebreaker in the ABSN program,” he said. “Day one of orientation, tell us something interesting about yourself: ‘I used to perform with Mickey and his friends in a show called “One Man’s Dream II.” ’ It’s a unique experience. Not many people have gotten the opportunity to do that.”

During his tenure at the theme park, Jennings earned a promotion to line captain, a role that’s responsible for leading rehearsals on days when the director and production team aren’t available, as well as mitigating conflicts between cast members. Away from the job, he enjoyed the minor celebrity status that accompanied being a Disney performer in Japan, while finding time to travel to countries throughout Asia.

Asked if he still misses that chapter of his life, Jennings said: “Every day, though I think it’s mostly nostalgia now. I was young. I was making good money. The world was my oyster.”

Dancing is often a young person’s profession, and when Jennings reached his early 30s, he realized that he would need to discover his second act. In December 2019, he took part in the final staging ever of “One Man’s Dream,” returned to his hometown of Spring Valley and retired as a dancer.

As he began to contemplate what would come next, he thought about things that brought him joy. He thought about his love of babies, shaped by a formative experience helping to care for a newborn cousin who lived with his family when he was just 10 years old. He thought about his exposure to caretaking through poor health suffered by his stepfather and grandfather.

He thought, in other words, that nursing – especially pediatric nursing – might be a good fit. So early in the pandemic, he spent a year at Cuyamaca College knocking out the science prerequisites required for him to attend nursing school. Once those were complete, he applied to CSUSM and began studying in its ABSN program in spring 2023.

While he battled feelings of imposter syndrome in the classroom from his lack of science training, Jennings sought out any and all chances he could uncover to gain nursing-adjacent seasoning. One such opportunity came through CSUSM’s Mobile Wellness Initiative, which engages students from the seven disciplines of the College of Education, Health and Human Services (including nursing) in community-based health education and promotion events. Starting in February, Jennings volunteered for about seven events in the community, doing things like blood pressure screenings for adults and healthy eating activities for kids.

“Recognizing my own ignorance, the fact that I don't have health care experience, I wanted to expose myself to as many scenarios where health care is provided and communities to which is provided as possible,” he said. “It put a very human face on health care for me, in a way that's not in a hospital room where everything's beeping.”

Matt Mincey, a nursing lecturer who established the Mobile Wellness Initiative, has witnessed Jennings in action at several community health events and seen how the outsized personality and stage presence that Jennings brought to his dancing career translate to the field of nursing.

“One of the things that nursing students struggle with is confidence, especially when it comes to speaking with others,” Mincey said. “Most students find a way to break through that barrier, but it comes at different times for everyone. Jonathan just had this ability from the get-go. He is humble, but he is also confident in what he knows and he is eager to share with anyone who will listen.

“I am excited to see where he goes after graduation but already feel the loss in our operations that will be hard to replace.” 

For his final semester this fall, Jennings worked an externship in the cardiothoracic ICU at Rady Children’s Hospital (one of the top such units in the country) and also did clinical rotations in telehealth at UC San Diego and as a school nurse. He has interviewed for a full-time job at Rady and hopes to have received a job offer by early next year.

If he gets the position, he won’t be dressing up in costumes and dancing for patients. But he perceives almost daily the ways in which his previous life benefits him in his new life.

“Other than actual textbook content, I don't think there's a corner of nursing that my old career doesn't apply to, which was surprising to me,” he said. “It's being versed in a lot of soft skills that I didn't recognize were skills until I had to apply them in a field where that's not the dominant thing that we're using to create value. If something's going wrong and the doctor has to run out and get a new piece of equipment, I can stand in that room and hold the audience and distract them from pain or whatever they're feeling, as opposed to freezing and standing there awkwardly or leaving the room. I didn't see that as a marketable skill in nursing, but now I do.”

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The brown boxes are packed with snacks such as Oreos and Goldfish and tied together with blue and purple ribbon, Sigma Theta Tau’s colors. The snacks help to raise the recipient's blood sugar level, but the real goal of the appreciation boxes runs deeper. 

“We want them to see how much we acknowledge the impact that they have on us,” said nursing student Jonathan Corps, who will graduate in December. “It's us acknowledging that they are going out of their way to accommodate us and that their help is the only way that we're going to learn. It helps us solidify that relationship and let them know that we're not just here to learn; we appreciate that they are the ones teaching us.”

First distributed during the pandemic, the appreciation boxes have become an annual rite. The boxes are delivered during the week to hospitals where students previously have done their clinical rotations. Students are assigned to a field where they can practice what they have been learning at school. 

“Whenever we get the chance to go out and show that appreciation, we try to do it,” Corps said, “It's an ongoing thing. It's like getting flowers on Valentine's Day – show your love every day, but that one special day you try to give that extra push.”

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Interim assistant director of editorial and external affairs
ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

The grant from The Conrad Prebys Foundation will allow CSUSM to team up with TrueCare, a community health center and nonprofit organization, to provide free health and wellness services in medically underserved areas of North County.

The grant money specifically will go to CSUSM’s College of Education, Health and Human Services. Over the next two years, CEHHS will deploy the funds to hire a project coordinator, buy health care equipment and supplies, and send students into the community with health care professionals from TrueCare and alongside the organization’s fleet of mobile wellness units.

Jennifer Ostergren, dean of CEHHS, said the partnership with TrueCare will give students from the college’s seven disciplines – nursing, kinesiology, public health, human development, social work, speech-language pathology and education – valuable chances to intersect and work together.  

“Through this grant, our students will have a unique opportunity to work together with other disciplines in the college to provide services for and guided by our local community,” Ostergren said. “This type of community-informed and interdisciplinary experience will be transformative for them. I have no doubt our students will walk away from this experience with both a greater understanding of the needs of our local community and a greater appreciation for the many disciplines in the college.”

This grant from The Conrad Prebys Foundation builds off work done through a previous award from the foundation. Last year, CSUSM received almost $150,000 to support its faculty innovation fellows program, through which five faculty members were selected to lead an entrepreneurial project while also serving as an innovation ambassador to other faculty.

One of those innovation fellows was Matt Mincey, a nursing lecturer whose two-year project explored the educational and community benefits of incorporating a mobile health unit into student learning experiences across CEHHS. In May, Mincey established a partnership between CEHHS and TrueCare via a Community Engaged Scholarship grant from CSUSM.

The grant created the CEHHS Mobile Wellness Initiative. On Aug. 12, the initiative held its first event as Mincey and CSUSM nursing and public health students joined TrueCare at its annual health fair and breast milk drive in San Marcos, working collaboratively to provide health promotion and education to families.  

The relationship with TrueCare deepened this summer as Ostergren connected with Michelle D. Gonzalez, TrueCare’s president and CEO and a member of the CEHHS dean’s advisory council and CSUSM president’s university council, as well as Anthony White, the organization’s vice president of government and community affairs. CEHHS and TrueCare applied together for the grant from The Conrad Prebys Foundation.

“We are excited to leverage the mutual benefits of this longstanding relationship to multiply the impact both TrueCare and Cal State San Marcos can have on the community,” White said. “By providing Cal State students with hands-on experience on our mobile units, together, we can close the gap on our regional health care needs and support the future generation of health professionals.”

Christina Holub, chair of CSUSM’s public health department, is serving as project coordinator until a permanent coordinator can be hired. Mincey will continue serving as a faculty lead. Some of the funding will go toward renting a van equipped with medical supplies to complement TrueCare’s larger mobile units, but Ostergren hopes that this project will lead to the college eventually having a mobile clinic of its own.

The program calls for CEHHS to do two to three community events per semester with TrueCare, and hundreds of community members are expected to be served at each event.

“It's important to show that we're not an island,” Ostergren said. “We're working with our partners to make life a little better for our community.”

The award to CSUSM is among grants to 18 clinics across the region, totaling $8.1 million, by The Conrad Prebys Foundation as part of its Strengthening Health Access, Resources and Excellence (SHARE) Initiative. The foundation launched the initiative in April, providing two-year, unrestricted grants of up to $250,000 per year to health clinics that effectively serve communities needing improved health services – especially Indigenous, immigrant and border residents.

“Not only is this project providing essential health services for communities that need them most, but Cal State San Marcos is helping students receive valuable internship opportunities in a field that is struggling to fill health care positions,” said Grant Oliphant, CEO of The Conrad Prebys Foundation. “This is the kind of creative work that our community needs, and we are proud to support this terrific partnership.”

Ripples and their far-reaching effects have been the overarching theme of much of Low’s adult life. There are the ripples of the thousands of patients he helped during his three-decade career as a radiologist at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. There are the ripples of his father and uncle, the former of whom was a World War II hero in the Pacific and the latter who died in combat. And there are the ripples of the secret family history that Low unearthed during his second act as a published author – the unlikely love story between two Chinese immigrants in San Francisco in the late 19^th century that spawned generations of Chinese Americans, including Low himself.  

All of this knowledge weighed heavily on Low’s mind last August as he lay in a bed at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, fighting off a nasty staph infection that doctors told him could have ended his life if left untreated for one more day. Amid his hospitalization and subsequent rehab, he spoke with many nurses, some of whom were alumni of Cal State San Marcos. Not only was he grateful for their excellent level of care, but he was left inspired by their personal stories – the hardships they had overcome, the financial struggles they had faced, the dedication they showed to their work.  

“These stories were so compelling,” Low said. “I knew at that moment that I had been given a second chance at life, and I wanted to do something to help them. I was a ripple, and this was my opportunity to live my life differently, to give back to the people who are helping me.”  

Low now hopes to create ripples that will benefit others. He and his wife, Carolyn Hesse-Low, a renowned plein air artist, have donated $5,000 to CSUSM to create a scholarship for undergraduate nursing students. Two students who meet certain criteria each will receive $2,500 for the 2022-23 academic year, and Low intends to contribute at least $5,000 annually to continue the scholarship.  

He also delivered a virtual lecture, appropriately titled “Ripples in Time,” on April 19 in which he recounted his remarkable, multigenerational family story and the personal experiences that precipitated his support of CSUSM nursing students. Low tells that tale more deeply in his 2019 book “Three Coins: A Young Girl’s Story of Kidnappings, Slavery and Romance in 19^th Century America,” and he will donate all proceeds from his book sales – purchased not just on Tuesday but any date – to support nursing scholarships.  

The event Tuesday was hosted by the College of Education, Health and Human Services, and sponsored by the School of Nursing, the CSUSM Student Nurses Association and the Cross-Cultural Center. 

 “It makes me feel good, but it also makes the people who purchase the book feel good that they’re doing something to help young nurses in training,” Low said. 

Listen to Low talk for only a few minutes, and you’ll realize he’s a born storyteller, so much so that you’d swear he’s a lifelong writer rather than a physician who stumbled upon the craft late in life. His quest to document his family’s past began in 1982 when his oldest son was born and he set out to make a family tree, running into snags the farther back he tried to go.  

Specifically, Low got stuck on his great-grandparents. Through a relative, he came across a 1903 photograph of his great-grandfather, who Low had discovered was a worker on the transcontinental railroad, and his great-grandmother, about whom little was known. The family lore, as passed down to Low, was that missionaries had brought her from China to America, but Low figured that was unlikely, given the harsh anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States at the time (Chinese women weren’t allowed to enter the country, and after the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese laborers also were barred from entry or U.S. citizenship; this exclusion continued for 61 years).

“The big question at that point was: Who is the wife?” he said. “Where did she come from? Why was she here? She shouldn’t have been here.” 

Those questions, and their captivating answers, form the basis of “Three Coins.” The comprehensive research undergirding the book became a saga that lasted almost two decades. In the process, Low uncovered the story of Ah Ying, who was only 9 when she was sold into slavery and brought to America in 1880. She was defiant, refusing to be held down by slave owners, missionaries or Chinese thugs. Against great odds, she survived, fell in love with Hung Lai Wah and started a family.  

Low counts himself and his own family – including his two sons, Ryan and Robert – among the generations of descendants of that improbable union. 

“There are more than 100 of us now who’ve had incredible lives and accomplishments and contributions that were only possible because of this young girl and her survival and the ripples,” Low said. “The attitude of never giving up hope is key to who these people were and who I am. That kind of resilience really led to generations of Americans.” 

Low retired from his medical practice on Dec. 31, 2019, nine months after the release of “Three Coins.” (This month, he published his second book focused on family history; “The All-American Crew: A True Story of a World War II Bomber and the Men Who Flew It” is about his uncle, Stanley, and the nine crewmates who died in the war.) About a year-and-a-half after retirement, Low embarked with some friends on a backpacking trip in Yosemite National Park. The objective was audacious: Hike 50 miles and climb 9,000 feet of elevation, to the summit of Sing Peak, all with 30-40 pounds of gear strapped to his back.  

Low had prepared for the expedition for months by hiking around the hills of La Jolla, and he was feeling great as he neared the peak on the third day. As he tried to scramble over a pile of rocks, however, he lost his balance and fell. Fearing that his head would smash into the stone and result in a subdural hematoma, he was relieved when he looked himself over and found only some abrasions on the back of his right shoulder.  

Crisis seemingly averted, he posed for photos with his friends at the top and set out on the long descent. But problems soon emerged. After logging 11 miles on the first day down, Low started to feel his body shutting down. He was shaking so much that a friend thought he was hypothermic and Low thought he might have COVID-19.  

He didn’t, though the reality turned out to be even worse. Overcome by fatigue, painfully slow movement and even double vision, he was able to make the long drive home thanks largely to the self-drive mode on his Tesla. Back in La Jolla, he checked into urgent care at the urging of his wife, whereupon he was diagnosed with a staph aureus infection that caused near-fatal sepsis.  

Between the hospital and a couple of rehab facilities, Low couldn’t return home for a month, and it took three months for him to walk normally again, in part because of preexisting spinal stenosis made worse by the weeks in bed. Even now, he says he’s still not quite back to full health.  

“I don’t understand how it happened or what happened,” he said. “But I have to confess that I’m still very freaked out. When I get a little cut or I get some back pain or neck pain, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, it’s coming back.’ I think that will stay with me for a while.” 

Just like the CSUSM nursing alumni who helped save his life and inspired his philanthropy, however, Low is nothing if not resolute in the face of adversity. He is, after all, the great-grandson of Ah Ying.  

“Everything in our lives, quite frankly, is part of a much bigger story,” Low said. “I can talk to you about what happened to my great-grandmother and its effects. But everything in our lives is a ripple. It’s just that this near life-ending event was so dramatic. It was a ripple. I am a ripple. And I want to make sure that the outcome of that ripple is a positive one and that something positive grows out of it.” 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The donation is the first one that CSUSM has received from the Henry L. Guenther Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization based in Seal Beach.  

Funding will be used to equip three lab complexes with advanced technology and equipment, including virtual reality, simulation manikins and industry-standard instruments that will mirror real health care settings. The new immersive training labs will build a highly qualified and diverse nursing workforce to advance the health of residents in the region.  

“Thanks to the generosity of the Guenther Foundation, the School of Nursing at CSUSM is able to advance its simulation capacity with the purchase of state-of-the-art technology that offers nursing students an opportunity to participate in faculty-guided, simulated experiences that prepare students for the real-world scenarios they will face during their clinical rotations and as practicing nurses after they graduate,” said Jennifer Ostergren, dean of CSUSM’s College of Education, Health and Human Services. 

The funding from the Guenther Foundation will allow CSUSM to build upon its on-campus nursing facility that was renovated in 2014. That remake resulted in a 12,000-square-foot space featuring a larger nursing skills lab with 11 beds, a state-of-the art simulation theater and four mock exam rooms. CSUSM also has added several body-accurate manikins that allow students to engage in realistic patient-care scenarios.  

With the new funding, CSUSM will supplement its current offerings with the following technologies:  

• Simulation capture audio/visual system for simulation rooms, including software, audio and video equipment for full integration of simulated care and post-simulation review for students and faculty.  

• Nursing Anne Simulator system, which includes a manikin, tablet and monitor.  

• Simulation newborn system, which will assist with newborn health assessment training.  

• 10 simulation pads, which are used to control manikins and simulators and allow instructors to deliver simulation-based training such as heart tones, lung sounds and bowel sounds. 

• Infusion and syringe pumps, which help teach nursing students how to administer IV fluids and medications. 

• Spot Vital Signs system, vitals machines that are used in hospitals and other health settings, including blood pressure cuff, thermometer and cart. 

Susanne Sundberg, chairman of the Guenther Foundation Board of Directors, said not only did CSUSM’s grant request fall within the foundation’s mission and areas of focus for funding, but that she was personally interested in it because her granddaughter is in nursing school. 

“We know there’s a critical need for nurses in California,” Sundberg said. “The Board of Directors is confident that the simulation and skills lab as funded by the Henry L. Guenther Foundation will help increase a qualified nursing workforce in the state.” 

The competition, which is hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, provides college students with “real-world experience and industry connections that will help them prepare for future careers in the marine energy sector and the blue economy.”

CSUSM is partnering with New Mexico State for the competition.

In its third year, the competition will have teams create a market-research-supported business plan; develop, design and test technologies; and build and test their device to achieve energy production.

Reza Kamali, an associate professor of electrical engineering, said the competition opportunity was possible with the assistance of Hamed Nademi, a faculty member at New Mexico State who is joining CSUSM this summer.

Nademi said wave energy is the most abundant form of renewable energy with a relatively high power density and readily available along the coasts.

“In some regions, this resource is large enough to form a significant part of the energy mix,” Nademi said. “To effectively and efficiently connect any of the marine technologies to the existing electrical infrastructure, either onshore or offshore, a power conversion system needs to be developed for the proper conditioning of the wave energy to be delivered.

“Rethinking the traditional rules and methods is required for the design and assembly of a marine electrical power network that needs a novel skill set for future workforces. This is an extra benefit of bringing electrical engineering students to this DOE 2022 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition. It stimulates students to pursue further studies in any area of STEM-related disciplines while simultaneously engaging them in the design, simulation and 3D printing experiments.”

Communication professor part of U.S. delegation on HIV/AIDS

Communication professor Andrew Spieldenner was selected to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations High Level Meeting (HLM) on HIV/AIDS from June 8-10.

This is the fourth HLM meeting, which is held every five years, since the UN General Assembly adopted its Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS in 2001. One of the objectives of this week’s meeting will be to review progress on commitments made at the 2016 HLM toward ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

Spieldenner also was recently named one of the Eastern Communication Association Teaching Fellows for 2021. The teaching fellows program recognizes a distinguished career of teaching excellence in the field of communication.

Honors for School of Education alumni

Three alumni from the School of Education were recently honored with teacher of the year awards:

• Sheila Gromm received the Outstanding Special Education Teacher Award for the North County Consortium of Special Education, which comprises 14 school districts in North San Diego County.
• Michael Mueller, an education specialist at Twin Oaks High School in San Marcos, was named San Marcos Unified School District Teacher of the Year Secondary.
• Sierra Thernes, an education specialist at Calavera Hills Elementary School in Carlsbad, was named Teacher of the Year in the Carlsbad Unified School District.

Recognition for nursing program

The nursing program has been ranked 21^st on College Values Online’s “30 Best Online RN to BSN Programs for 2021.”

College Values Online’s methodology includes tuition costs, return on investment, scholarship availability, accelerated program availability and online student support.

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Pictures will be taken, presents given. Leis and bouquets of flowers will be exchanged between proud parents and joyful graduates.

A moment four years in the making will be captured and celebrated for the amazing accomplishment it is.

And somewhere on the field, Winter Minton will smile while reading her name on the diploma. For she’ll know the road less paved – one chosen both for her and by her at various times in her life – has led her to accomplishing something few could have predicted.

“I believe that Winter’s journey is inspiring,” said Laurie Orr, a licensed clinical social worker and counselor with ACE Scholars Services on campus.

Minton’s story is one of inspiration through the lens of darkness. It’s a tale of adversity even when life tells you you’re not good enough.

Because her mother has been a drug addict throughout Minton’s life, she spent pretty much every year until the age of 17 in the Riverside County foster care system. While she is thankful to have had “great placements,” she also was placed in living situations where she was abused.

Chaotic interpersonal relationships, academic struggles and feelings of neglect and abandonment can be common for children who spend a great deal of their lives in the foster care system like Minton did.

It’s often a tumultuous path to travel. In addition to changing homes multiple times, Minton switched schools the same amount of times. That resulted in disruption and confusion at developmental ages where consistency, stability and love are paramount.

But there’s something about the human spirit that grows even under the darkest of skies.

Despite the chaos, Minton had goals at an early age. One of the main ones she never lost was her desire to become a nurse.

“I decided to become a nurse during my time in the system,” Minton said. “I wanted to help as many people as I could and knew this profession would do just that.”

Minton learned from her social worker about ACE Scholars Services, which provides support and programs for former foster youth now enrolled at CSUSM. It aims to transform lives through higher education. Currently, the rate of former foster youth who graduate from college is lower than 10 percent. ACE aims to greatly improve that rate, and Minton is part of a class that has pushed the number of ACE graduates over 100 since its founding in 2007.

Minton entered CSUSM and ACE from the foster care system as a freshman for the summer bridge program in 2015.

“Her goal was to become a registered nurse, sharing that, ‘This is what I have always wanted my whole life,’ ” Orr said. “And it was clear from the moment we met that she was determined to reach that goal. I have observed Winter to be serious and focused when it comes to her studies. I also know her to be compassionate, caring and highly motivated to succeed.”

Although Minton was used to facing challenges head on, she also had to deal with the disappointment of not being admitted to the highly competitive School of Nursing upon her admission to CSUSM. Despite completing all the pre-nursing coursework, the road was made longer before it even began.

But that didn’t stop Minton.

She changed her major to human development with a plan to enter the accelerated nursing program. Her drive and passion for becoming a nurse came to the attention of the director of the School of Nursing. She was so impressed when she met Minton that she was offered admission to the school for fall 2018. 

“Although she was deeply disappointed when she initially was not admitted to the highly competitive School of Nursing, Winter did not give up on her dream,” Orr said. “She doubled down and worked hard to change her academic trajectory. ACE Scholars Services believed in Winter’s potential and supported her throughout her journey, encouraging Winter to keep pushing forward toward her goals.”

Minton successfully completed six years of study at CSUSM and will graduate this weekend with a bachelor’s in nursing.

After graduation, she will prepare for the California Board of Registered Nursing licensing exam in order to become a licensed registered nurse. Upon passing, she’ll apply to hospitals throughout San Diego with hopes to become a labor and delivery nurse.

“I believe my inner strength and perseverance comes from the hardships I endured,” Minton said. “I wanted to break the cycle of drug addiction and have a well-respected profession. I aspire to have a family of my own day, and I want to give them everything I did not have growing up. I wanted to become someone great. I knew I wanted to make a positive impact on people's lives.” 

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

You would call the Menyhays. If the father, Steve, wasn’t home, you’d talk to the mother, Pamela. If Pamela wasn’t there, you’d talk to Steve. If either was around, well, all the better because that meant double the knowledge.

They were the neighborhood nurses. Pamela has been a pediatric nurse since she was 22. Steve has held that same job since his early 30s. And as they dispensed medical wisdom and personal empathy in equal doses to people on their street as well as hospital patients, you’d better believe that Sarah and her two younger sisters were soaking it all up.

Some children rebel against their parents’ profession. Sarah has modeled her whole life after it.

“Growing up hearing everyone always being so thankful to have my parents in their lives and in our neighborhood, I was like, ‘I’m going to follow in their footsteps. I’m going to do the same thing,’ ” she said.

The road has been longer and more arduous than she might have expected, but Menyhay has reached a major milestone en route to emulating her mom and dad. On Sunday, she will graduate from the accelerated bachelor’s program in the School of Nursing at Cal State San Marcos, with Pamela and Steve in attendance for the commencement ceremony on campus. The next day, just Pamela (because only one guest is allowed) will join her for the nursing pinning ceremony at the University Student Union amphitheater.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, much to Menyhay’s chagrin, among those not able to celebrate her accomplishments in person will be her younger sister, Alexa, who’s in the nursing program at Fresno City College; her youngest sister, Claire (nicknamed “The Baby”), who’s finishing up her prerequisites for nursing school at Fresno City; and her 90-year-old grandmother, who lives with the family and was a licensed vocational nurse before retiring.

“Medicine definitely runs in our family,” Sarah said. “I think my parents are very happy and blessed that my sisters and I get to keep the tradition alive. And it’s not like it was forced on us whatsoever. We all chose this on our own.”

After experiencing great mental and emotional strain early in nursing school – she says she cried every night and considered dropping out because of the demands of the program – Menyhay is finishing on a high note. Like many of her classmates, she derived tremendous personal and professional satisfaction from a spring semester in which the community health rotation essentially turned into a series of shifts administering vaccines on the front lines of the pandemic.

Menyhay estimates that she gave almost 400 shots during the semester, and among those were two very noteworthy ones. On St. Patrick’s Day, she was the lucky student who gave the shot that was the 10,000th administered at the Palomar Health vaccine clinic in downtown Escondido (there were balloons and a giant banner sign to commemorate the occasion). A few days later, Menyhay responded to a call from nursing professor Katie Robinson seeking a volunteer to give CSUSM President Ellen Neufeldt her second vaccine shot at The Sports Center on campus.

In multiple ways, Menyhay was the perfect person for what she called a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Not only has she grown to love giving vaccines – to the point that she also volunteered to work as many shifts as possible at the vaccine clinic for the campus community – but she possesses a warm, gregarious personality that allows her to connect easily with patients.  

“As far as anyone looking on could tell, Sarah may as well have been having coffee with the president as opposed to giving her a vaccination,” Robinson said. “Sarah is an incredibly affable person, which will serve her well as a nurse. Her sincerity and caring nature truly shine when interacting with clients.”  

It’s in Menyhay’s DNA – both the passion for nursing and the affability. Her father is a hospice nurse now, but he spent most of his career working in a children’s hospital, where he would do magic shows (with Sarah’s assistance) to help buoy the spirits of sick kids. He would also wear different-colored socks on purpose to make patients laugh and distract them from the sometimes-unpleasant task at hand.  

Like father, like daughter. 

“My attitude is, ‘I’m going to talk to every patient that I can, make sure they’re OK and feel comfortable,’” Menyhay said. “I think that’s embedded in me through my parents. I’m always concerned about my patient’s needs. It’s more than just having that label of an RN and making that income. For me, it’s about the people and patients.” 

Menyhay originally had medical school in her sights. After high school, she attended community college in Fresno for five years to load up on the science classes she would need, then transferred to UC Davis, where she earned a degree in psychology. But the process of applying to med schools coincided with a difficult time in her life; within a matter of months, three of her grandparents died of different illnesses.  

“Juggling classes and work and watching them in a hospital was hard to do,” she said. “It was too much for me. I was turning 30 and didn’t want to be in school for another 10 years of my life.” 

Menyhay switched gears to nursing and enrolled at CSUSM in January 2019. Once on campus, she joined the Student Nurses Association, through which she volunteered for events on youth science education, suicide awareness and eating disorders. But though she worked out a viable lodging arrangement in San Marcos, living with her boyfriend and his sister, she’s a homebody at heart. When the pandemic struck last year, she relished the chance to move back to Fresno and spend more time with her family while taking classes virtually.  

That changed this semester, as she threw herself into a historic opportunity to help the country recover from a health crisis through mass vaccinations. Following graduation this weekend, she plans to stay in the region in the hopes of landing a nursing job at a hospital like Rady’s or Scripps. Her long-range goal is to go to nurse practitioner school and focus on either pediatrics or women’s health.  

“She seems to share the same passion and commitment to the profession as her family,” Robinson said. “Whether inherited or learned, she certainly appears to be following a real calling. She will make her family proud.” 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

A first-generation college student, Cope participated in Bridges to the Future, TRIO McNair Scholars, a National Science Foundation-Research Experience for Undergraduates program at San Jose State, and he worked in the lab of biology professor Elinne Becket.

Becket lauded Cope’s drive. As one example, Becket had him look into utilizing pulsed-field gel electrophoresis as a way to analyze large mobile genetic elements in microbial communities. Becket noted that these machines are expensive, and they would need to look into the feasibility of this method from a research and cost-effective perspective.

Within a week, Becket said, Cope downloaded AutoCAD and designed the entire apparatus to be 3D-printed, connected with faculty from the electrical engineering department to design the wiring setup, and coordinated with other biology faculty to utilize 3D printers on campus. Cope plans to upload these designs online for any lab to emulate, increasing research tool accessibility.

“Matt has a diverse range of interests and experiences that converge into a clear passion with important broader impacts,” Becket said. “He has demonstrated a collaborative, collegial and transdisciplinary nature in such an early stage of his research career. Between this, his creative drive and his sensitivity to improve the lives of those around him, I have the utmost confidence that he will be successful in his graduate studies and will be a valuable and impactful member of the scientific community. Through his contributions over the last two years at CSUSM, he has proven himself not only to be an incredible scholar, but also a valuable and selfless member of our campus community.”

Cope will attend UC Davis in the fall to pursue research involving plant-microbe interactions.

Nursing lecturer receives fellowship

Tara Marko, a lecturer in the School of Nursing, has been awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.

Marko, who’s enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Washington State University, will receive an award of $50,000 over two years through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which conducts research into the effects of the environment on human disease. It’s one of the 27 institutes and centers of the NIH.

Marko will study the effects on neonatal outcomes after exposure to wildfire smoke in utero.

“Conducting this research will build on my experience as a neonatal intensive care nurse and support a strong foundation in my career as a nurse scientist with a focus on environmental exposure in the maternal child population,” Marko said.

Honors for USU marketing team

The University Student Union marketing team was recently recognized in two categories of the ACUI Steal this Idea competition.

The USU end-of-the-year celebration work placed second in the professional digital campaign category. The women’s empowerment month content placed third in the professional video category.

The digital campaign included contributions from Anthony Ferrer, USU digital media specialist, and Jamie Acevedo, USU assistant director. The video campaign included contributions from Hunter Chanove, USU marketing and media coordinator; Ferrer; and students Mason Broadway, Julissa Briseno, Mikayla Meneses and Daisy Camacho.

ACUI is a nonprofit educational organization that brings together college union and student activities professionals.

Student receives CSUPERB award

Gilda Castellanos was selected to receive a 2021 CSUPERB Presidents’ Commission Scholar Award in the amount of $8,000 to fund a project titled, “Modeling the metastasis of bioprinted breast cancer tumors using the chorioallantoic membrane of the chick embryo.”

Castellanos, whose faculty mentor is biology professor Carlos Luna Lopez, is one of six CSU students whose research projects are being funded this year.

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

The one-hour self-paced course gives nurses and future nurses in any health care setting an overview of palliative care, as well as strategies to talk with patients and families about palliative care, help them identify health care goals, and start advance care planning.

Nurses and other health care professionals can sign up here to receive the free course promo code. Those who complete the course will earn one continuing education (CE) credit.

Palliative care is an extra level of support for people with serious or life-limiting illnesses. It focuses on managing pain, nausea, anxiety and other physical, emotional and spiritual symptoms common in serious illness, so patients and families can live their best lives possible.

For more information about the institute’s online palliative care courses, visit csupalliativecare.org or call 760-750-4006.

Some were scheduled to be stationed in the Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District, providing health screenings and education to children of all ages. Others were bound for a food pantry in Fallbrook. Still others were slotted to go to Rachel’s Women’s Center, a homeless shelter in downtown San Diego.

COVID-19, however, was not done wreaking havoc on the usual operations of the School of Nursing at CSUSM. For various reasons stemming from the pandemic, the planned community health rotations barely got off the ground.

So the leaders of the nursing school did something that they have become all too accustomed to during this once-in-a-century health crisis – they adjusted on the fly to ensure that CSUSM nursing students are continuing to receive the best possible preparation for their careers despite the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus.

Only days before the semester started, nursing lecturer Madelyn Lewis got an email from a colleague at Palomar Health informing her that the company, in concert with the County of San Diego, would be opening a drive-through vaccination site at its former hospital in downtown Escondido and was seeking CSUSM nursing students to help administer the shots. By early February, Lewis had completely shuffled the schedules of dozens of students, who were now assigned the valuable and life-affirming task of helping vulnerable community members begin to escape from the year-long darkness of the pandemic.

“Since all this started, the one thing I kept saying is, ‘We have to be part of the solution,’ ” said Lewis, a retired county public health nurse who has been teaching at CSUSM for about a decade, in the area of community health. “As a former public health nurse, there’s nothing more important that we should be doing than vaccines and testing. What else is there, really? We’re doing what public health needs us to do, and because of the gravity of the situation, the students are thrilled to be helping.”

That certainly looked to be the case on a Thursday in mid-March, when about 10 students from the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program joined Lewis in the parking garage of the old Escondido hospital for an eight-hour shift of giving vaccines to people in cars as they navigated the drive-through location.

It was the seventh week of Lewis cobbling together groups of students to work at the site three days a week, and they had the process down to a science. The students moved quickly and efficiently as the cars snaked through the garage in pods of several each, with each vaccinator assigned a number position on either the inside or outside lane.

The setting was drab, to be sure, but lights had been strung up to brighten the atmosphere, and that was matched by the mood of the clients after they received their shots. Many of them hollered out their windows or honked their horns as they exited out of sheer elation.

“I just feel so proud. At the end of the shift, no matter if it’s a good day or a bad day, I know that we’re doing the work that people are dying to have done – literally dying,” said Joseph de Silva, who will be graduating with the rest of his ABSN cohort in May. “Our knees are hurting, our backs are aching, but we all have smiles on our faces when it’s done. Hopefully, we can vaccinate as many people as possible so life can return to normal.”

When Di Pham entered the ABSN program in January 2019, she never could have imagined what she would be doing just over two years later, before she even obtained her nursing license.

“I think this is a career-defining moment for all of us, and to have that so early on in our experience is so neat,” Pham said during a break from vaccinations last month. “Whatever path we choose to go on, this will be remembered in history for a long time, and we get to be a part of it. We’re lucky to have the opportunity.”

Two days before de Silva, Pham and classmates vaccinated hundreds of community members at Palomar Health, four other students in their cohort were engaged in the same vital task on CSUSM’s campus, in The Sports Center as part of the vaccine site that was then run by the county and now is being managed by Sharp HealthCare. The contrast from the scene at Palomar couldn’t have been starker – this was a walk-in clinic in a well-lit, cavernous space – but the ebullient vibes in the air felt comfortingly familiar.

Evan Swarth, an ABSN student originally from Washington, D.C., was in his seventh week of working one shift a week at The Sports Center, and he estimated that he had administered more than 300 shots during that time. On this day, Swarth was paired at a table with fellow nursing student Austin Reese, who was new to the CSUSM site after spending the previous few weeks at St. Paul’s PACE, a senior care center in Chula Vista. Swarth was greeting and asking questions of the clients while Reese was handling vaccine paperwork and database duties.

“This has been the coolest experience for me so far because so much of health care can be kind of depressing,” Swarth said. “Patients in the hospital might not even want their nurse to be in the room, and certainly don’t want a nurse near them with a needle. But when they’re coming to us here, they’re so excited and looking forward to the experience. That’s really special to see, and also we can feel how grateful and appreciative they are.”

Swarth recounted the case of a 97-year-old woman who, in his words, “traipsed and boogied” from the entrance of The Sports Center all the way to the table where Swarth was to give her the vaccine.

“And she even invited me over to a little dancing party later,” he said. “That was my favorite one.”

Rosemary Gaines, the nursing lecturer who supervises the students at the campus site every Tuesday and Wednesday, said those types of interpersonal interactions with clients are invaluable for the professional development of the nursing students. The act of giving injections is the easy part, a basic skill that’s learned early in nursing school. It’s the so-called “soft skills” that are being put to the test.

“We try to make this like the real world because they’re almost in it,” Gaines said. “They don’t just meet the client. We do a lot more than just, ‘Here’s your Pfizer injection.’ We talk to them, get to know them, because they’ve been very socially isolated.” 

The Sports Center and Palomar Health had been the only area locations where CSUSM nursing students are administering vaccines, but recently a third site even closer to home entered the mix. Last late month, CSUSM was approved to receive its first doses of the Moderna vaccine, and soon after the university opened a clinic exclusively to vaccinate members of the campus community. The clinic now has been operating for three weeks, and nursing students have been tasked with giving out those hundreds of shots as well. One of those students, Dominique Agosta-Westley, gave a shot to Deborah Kristan, the interim dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Services (in which the School of Nursing resides), on March 24, the first day the clinic was open. 

It’s all quite a change from where the School of Nursing found itself at this time last year, when its students and faculty absorbed perhaps the biggest impact from the abrupt shutdown of campus and nearly all facets of society. It wasn’t just that their ground classes became remote classes. Almost overnight, all of the meticulously arranged clinical placements around the region dried up, imperiling the students’ graduation dates and immediate job prospects. 

“As spring turned to summer, we had to go about finding new sites, literally from scratch, in the middle of a pandemic, finding places that would take students under whatever circumstances,” Lewis said.  

As the course coordinator for community health nursing, most of that burden fell on Lewis’ shoulders. She pieced together a few new partners – Rachel’s Women’s Center, St. Paul’s PACE in Chula Vista, La Posada de Guadalupe men’s shelter in Carlsbad – and when the county opened up the COVID-19 testing center at CSUSM to nursing students last fall, that created a wealth of opportunities.  

Meanwhile, on campus, nursing faculty were similarly being resourceful to ensure that students still were receiving the education they needed. While lectures remained virtual, last summer the School of Nursing began running a socially distanced skills lab in University Hall to provide students practice with the types of core competencies that they ordinarily would be honing in a hospital or clinic.  

And more recently, the nursing school has compensated for the absence of traditional preceptorships in hospitals by offering virtual reality simulations. When students come to the lab on their assigned day, they participate in face-to-face, manikin-based simulations. Then they head to Inspiration Studios in Kellogg Library to participate in VR simulation experiences. The sessions are overseen by professors, with technological help from Blake Schilling, the coordinator of Inspiration Studios. 

“The goal of the VR experience for our students is to strengthen their clinical reasoning skills by mimicking real-world patient care and the problems and risks they encounter there,” said Sheri Biro, simulation lead faculty. “It helps them to develop skills and build confidence to prepare them for clinical practice.” 

Most CSUSM nursing students will admit that they would have preferred to get the complete clinical experience that the pandemic has denied them over the past year. But the wide-reaching improvisation and adaptability of the School of Nursing leadership and faculty served the students well, allowing them to receive a high level of career training under historically adverse circumstances. 

“The most valuable part of this experience for me has been the overall reminder of why I decided to become a nurse, which is to serve and help the community,” Swarth said. “And what better way to do that than to be part of this surreal experience that we’ve never seen before in the history of our time.” 

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bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The students who contributed to the work included Kara Luong, Maya Saulino, Morgan Simmons and Carly Smith.

Sports Engineering noted that the strong field of finalists required a tiebreaker vote by Jonathan Shepherd, the president of the International Sports Engineering Association. The CSUSM team’s paper was only the second surfing manuscript ever published in Sports Engineering.

Social work professor named research fellow

Professor Jimmy Young is among 26 social work experts from across the U.S. and Canada selected as research fellows for the Social Work Health Futures Lab, which is sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and hosted at Portland State University.

Young will work on several projects and receive training to become a certified futurist during the 18-month fellowship.

Nursing program among best in West

The nursing program has been ranked 21^st in California and 44^th in the West by Nursing Schools Almanac, which recently released its 2020 rankings of the best U.S. nursing schools.

Nursing Schools Almanac collected data on more than 3,000 institutions, and only 20% made its list of the best nursing schools in each geographic region.

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Dr. Catherine Baker and Dr. Nancy Romig received the five-year grant from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD), which in total awarded $17.3 million to seven programs. Baker is an assistant professor and Romig is a professor emerita in CSUSM’s School of Nursing. Both are co-coordinators of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) program. 

Over the five years, the grant will provide full scholarships for 20 new PMHNP students and fund the costs associated with admitting additional students and securing field placements.  

After this academic year is dedicated to preparation for expansion, the PMHNP program will add five additional nursing master’s students for 2021-22 and each of the subsequent three school years. Funding will provide for expanded faculty, student recruitment, clinical site visits, preceptors, standardized patient costs and an annual training workshop for preceptors who oversee students.  

The grants are being funded through the Workforce Education and Training program as part of the Mental Health Services Act, which is intended to address the shortage of mental health practitioners in the public mental health system. Collectively, the grantees will add 36 psychiatry residency slots and fund 336 PMHNP slots. The funding will also help launch a new child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship program. 

“As we continue to navigate through these unprecedented times, the uncertainty and fear related to the pandemic has brought about uneasy feelings that can further exacerbate mental health issues while creating additional barriers in accessing supports and services,” said Marko Mijic, acting director of OSHPD. “We must double down on our efforts to build our public mental health system in order to expand access to quality services to all Californians.” 

Gonzalez, who earned her bachelor’s and master’s at CSUSM before attending Harvard for her Ph.D. in biology, is now the assistant director of diversity and minority affairs for the Division of Medical Sciences and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.

Cell Mentor, which compiled the list in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, selected recipients based on scholarly achievements, mentoring excellence, and commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Cell Mentor is an educational resource that aims to make it easier for biology students and researchers to navigate their careers, get published and strengthen their laboratory skills.

HEED Award

CSUSM received the 2020 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education, for the seventh straight year.

Rankings

• CSUSM made U.S. News and World Report’s list of top Western universities for Top Performers on Social Mobility (tied 13^th), Best Undergraduate Teaching Programs (tied 22nd) and Best Regional Universities West Rankings (tied 60^th).
• The nursing program has been ranked eighth in the state by Nursing Process, a website that simplifies access to nursing education and career information.
• The university was ranked ninth on a list of 2020 Most Affordable Online Colleges for Fire Science Degrees by the website EduRef.net, which provides college planning resources and reviews publicly available data to produce independent ranking assessments of various educational programs.

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

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It’s a vital and challenging mission, even absent a coronavirus pandemic, economic crises, and shifts in federal health care policy. Yet the foundation continues to focus on having meaningful, measurable impact across the state.

Through grantmaking, research, and thought leadership, CHCF is moving the needle on several fronts, including helping to make high-quality serious illness care and end-of-life care more accessible to all who need it.

That movement is illustrated by the foundation’s support of the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care, headquartered at Cal State San Marcos. The institute creates and delivers online and in-person education to help health professionals build specialized skills to relieve suffering and enhance quality of life for people with serious illnesses and those who care for them.

CHCF helped to launch the institute in 2012 and has continued to invest in its educational programs through grants totaling $1.95 million. Over the past eight years, the institute has trained more than 20,000 health professionals in palliative care and reached more than 25,000 students through education and awareness campaigns led by its campus partners.

CHCF has been integral to that success, said the institute’s Executive Director Jennifer Moore Ballentine.

“From the beginning, the California Health Care Foundation has been an engaged and extremely supportive partner,” Ballentine said. “Not only have they provided significant funding, but they have been a valuable thought partner, collaborator, and promoter in our mutual mission of advancing palliative care.”

Palliative care is whole-person, patient-centered care designed to ease suffering and improve quality of life for people with serious illnesses. It’s “what we would all want health care to be,” said Kate Meyers, MPP, Senior Program Officer for High-Value Care at CHCF.

“We all want health care providers to look at us as people with lives that exist outside of the health care system, instead of as a collection of diagnoses,” Meyers said. “We want care that will help us live our best lives as we face a serious illness.”

Meyers noted that CHCF’s initial investment in the institute was a recognition that, if California was going to meet the growing need for palliative care services, it needed a source of education, expertise and support for the clinicians who would provide those services.

As the institute has grown, CHCF has helped it identify and fund new educational programs on topics such as primary palliative care skills, care management, and telemedicine – all critical to expanding access to care for vulnerable populations, Meyers said.

Primary palliative care skills – basic skills for clinicians without advanced training in palliative care – are particularly important because, as the population ages, more people will be diagnosed with serious illnesses. Health professionals in primary care practices, clinics, and other settings must be prepared to care for them.

“It’s long been known that there aren't and won't ever be enough palliative care specialists – physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and others – to meet the growing need for palliative care,” Meyers said.

That’s a problem because palliative care skills such as communication, advance care planning, psychosocial aspects of care, and care at the end of life aren’t adequately addressed in medical school or training programs for other disciplines, she said.

“We expect these clinicians to emerge from their training equipped to do something they're not trained to do,” Meyers said. “They don't get nearly enough training in essential areas like pain and symptom management in progressive illness, having difficult conversations with patients and families, and addressing complex emotional issues.”

Weaving palliative care education into pre-professional training is critical. In 2019, CHCF helped fund a collaboration between the institute and its campus partners at Cal State San Marcos, Fresno State, and Cal State Monterey Bay to create a faculty toolkit with teaching and learning resources that can be incorporated into any classroom.

Twenty faculty members at the three campuses piloted the toolkit, reaching a total of 1,170 students in disciplines including nursing, social work, psychology, and gerontology. The institute is now working to make the toolkit more widely available across the CSU.

“The toolkit is a rich opportunity to collaborate with CSU colleagues to expand palliative care education across disciplines in undergraduate and graduate education,” said Pamela Kohlbry, RN, Ph.D., Director of University Relations and Research for the institute. “I’m so grateful to CHCF for supporting this important and inspiring work.”

The foundation continues to support other palliative care education, research, and quality initiatives across the state. In addition to the institute, CHCF has funded programs through the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California, the Palliative Care Quality Network at UC San Francisco, and many others including California’s public hospitals and a variety of health plans and community-based palliative care provider organizations.

Meyers said although access to palliative care has improved greatly in California and around the country, “it’s not enough. There’s still a long way to go to make sure all people with serious illness receive the kind of support that can help them live their best lives,” she said.

To learn more about CHCF’s work in palliative care, visit www.chcf.org/topic/serious-illness-end-of-life-care/.

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

When she first came to CSUSM as an assistant professor in the early 2000s, Kristan was tasked with putting together preparatory courses for a future School of Nursing curriculum. She served on an advisory group whose work was the footprint for the conception and organization of the future CEHHS. And she been on hiring committees for the founding nursing faculty as well as for human development and kinesiology professors. 

Now, after 2½ years in that associate dean role, Kristan is ready for her next challenge. On July 1, she will begin a one-year appointment as interim dean of CEHHS, encompassing the 2020-21 academic year. She will succeed Emiliano Ayala, who has decided to take on a faculty position in the college as a special education professor. 

“I feel like I completely understand the operations of the college from being the associate dean for the last 2½ years,” Kristan said. “I feel like I’m well-positioned to step in and provide some stability during this time of instability around the country, to keep the college on track. That’s how I view the job of an interim, is really just to keep the trains running on time – making decisions as needed, of course, but not making huge, 90-degree turns on anything until we go through a national search and the new, permanent dean comes in.” 

Kristan was named associate dean by former dean Janet Powell and learned under Powell for six months until Ayala was hired in July 2018. Ayala elected to retain Kristan in the role, and she in turn helped him acclimate to his new job. Kristan said she “thoroughly enjoyed” working with Ayala, lauding his management style, initiatives and approach to the deanship.  

Ayala, for his part, has no doubt that he’s leaving the college in very capable hands. 

“I am confident that Dr. Kristan will lead CEHHS with the same skill, experience and dedication she has brought to her role as our associate dean,” Ayala said. “During my tenure as dean, countless times I relied on and benefited from her thoughtful, measured approach to problem-solving that maintained a primary focus on supporting the needs of our college. Her leadership experience on campus offers her the ability to draw upon strong relationships across campus and echoes her collaborative nature, which will serve the college in immeasurable ways this next year.” 

As associate dean, Kristan acquired an intimate understanding of the college’s seven units – nursing, education, speech-language pathology, social work, public health, kinesiology and human development – from their accrediting bodies to their successes and struggles. She also helped manage the college’s budget, which, along with her experience with previous state budget cuts as a professor, has equipped her to navigate the likely financial crunch to come as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.  

“I feel very confident in my ability to guide the college in a budget crisis,” she said.  

The pandemic and the devastation it has wrought have reinforced the vital importance of higher education, and in particular the disciplines taught in CEHHS that are so interconnected with COVID-19 – the nurses who work on the front lines in the fight against the disease, the public health experts who study it, the educators who are either teaching K-12 students or helping other teachers do so in a new and unfamiliar format. 

“I feel like all of the disciplines within our college have such relevance to what we’re all experiencing as humans as we’re moving our way through this pandemic,” Kristan said.  

Kristan has been a professor at CSUSM since 2003. Her husband, Bill, is the chair of the biology department. The couple has two sons: Nathan, a recent graduate of Humboldt State University (where Debbie completed her master’s degree) and Ian, who just finished his freshman year at San Diego State. 

“I have the viewpoint of an educator, an administrator and a parent in terms of how this pandemic is affecting higher education,” Kristan said. “I also believe in the CSU and its mission. I feel like it provides such a quality education, and I want to help move that forward in this year for CEHHS.” 

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Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

More precisely, Stirling reports to an area outside the emergency room called the decontamination tent, a temporary (he hopes, at least) structure that the hospital has set up to deal with patients who show up with symptoms of COVID-19, the disease that now has infected a staggering 2.5 million people around the world. The numbers in this relatively isolated part of California remain manageable, but no one knows whether it will stay that way. The surge could still be coming. 

“We’re definitely in the eye of the storm here,” said Stirling, who received his bachelor’s degree in nursing from Cal State San Marcos in 2012. “I think things are going to get a little worse before they get better.” 

So despite ever-present feelings of stress and fear, Stirling goes to work, dons his personal protective equipment (PPE), and does what he can to keep people safe and well during this pandemic without precedent. The same is the case for hundreds of fellow alumni of CSUSM’s School of Nursing who are putting their training to heroic effect. This is the job that they signed up for, so this is the job that they’re doing – day in and day out, for however long COVID-19 ravages the nation. 

Here are three stories of CSUSM nursing alumni who are, to varying degrees, engaged in the fight. 

The ER nurse 

After graduating from CSUSM, Stirling worked as an inpatient nurse for a couple of years before earning a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from the University of San Diego in 2018. For the last two years, he has been stationed at the small hospital in Imperial County, which he describes as the “last stop before Arizona.” 

In the triage tent, Stirling is part of a team of nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants – they call themselves advanced practice providers, or APPs – who make up the first line of contact with patients arriving at the facility. He estimates that 80% of the patients he sees have COVID-19, though it’s impossible to really know because many of them are not being tested. 

“All this planning is around anticipating the surge like you’re seeing in New York and Italy and all those places where the health system becomes inundated and overwhelmed with these patients,” Stirling said. “This is a first step for most patients who come in the ER, where if they present with any sort of flu-like symptoms, they’ll be funneled over to the decon area. Then we’ll assess them and, depending on the risk, they can be admitted to a special room. Otherwise, it’s safer for them to be treated symptomatically and sent home. 

“So we’re that quick decision point where it’s like, ‘Do you need to be exposed to more things in the ER, or can you be treated and go home and self-isolate?’ ”  

Unlike a lot of hospitals that have run out of PPE, forcing them to scramble and even turn to face mask donations from the community, the supply chain of his care center has held up, Stirling said. But rationing is a new reality. He’s using his protective N95 respirators for three days instead of the normal one, and the hospital is rationing its limited supply of ventilators as well. In every snap decision he makes, Stirling strives to minimize the exposure of himself, his colleagues and the vital equipment that helps keep patients alive. 

“Things are a little more logistically complicated, as well as medically complicated for these patients,” he said. “It definitely makes work more challenging.” 

The challenges don’t end when Stirling goes home. His wife is pregnant with their first child, a girl who’s due in the fall, which means that he must be extra vigilant about removing his scrubs before he enters the house, sanitizing his equipment, and being meticulous about self-care in general. And emotionally, he grappled with the development that a family member who also works in health care was diagnosed with COVID-19 (the family remember has since recovered and returned to work).  

“It’s taking a toll,” Stirling said. “As the infection works its way through the community, it touches people’s lives and their work, and there’s no real escaping from it. You see people die at work, and then you go home and have to worry about your family. Even the PPE use kind of wears on your soul, having to wear a mask for that long. 

“It really comes at you from all fronts. It’s exhausting.” 

At the same time, what he’s going through now reminds him of why he chose nursing as a profession in the first place. 

“I’m proud of what nurses do every day, but it’s not something where we consider ourselves particularly heroic,” he said. “We put on our scrubs and we go to work, trying to keep our community safe and do what we can to help halt this.” 

The nurse and lecturer 

When the coronavirus struck San Diego County last month, Carol Suarez’s world was rocked on two fronts. Not only did it significantly raise her workload and stress level as a clinical nurse specialist at Palomar Health, but it cut short the class she was teaching at CSUSM. Suarez is both an alumna of the university – she earned a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees in nursing – and a lecturer in the School of Nursing since 2013. 

Because the course in the accelerated program involved clinical rotations, it was put on hold, with the hope of resuming at some point this summer. 

“It’s hard for the students to understand because they want to get out there and be part of what we’re doing,” Suarez said. “But we’re doing everything we can to ensure that they’re safe. They’re not ready to be part of the nursing frontline staff yet. We want to make sure they get all the nursing education they need in order to practice effectively and safely.”  

In her job at Palomar Health, for which she works in the medical centers in Escondido and Poway, Suarez isn’t on the front lines herself, but rather is supporting the nurses who are bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s impact. She helps educate and prepare them, and writes the policies and procedures that undergird their decision-making.  

As with the Imperial County hospital, neither Palomar center has experienced a surge of COVID-19 patients yet, but both are bracing for one, with triage tents out front where many patients check in and are examined for COVID-19 symptoms, with only the most serious cases admitted.  

“We have gotten our fair share of patients who have been positive,” Suarez said. “And we are anticipating getting a surge, so we’re doing everything beforehand to say, ‘OK, if it happens, we want to be ready. We want to make sure our staff are properly trained and that we have everything in place.’ ” 

Suarez said the war against the coronavirus has been the most difficult experience of her nursing career to date. With so much still unknown, fear and anxiety are as much a part of her daily existence as the PPE she dons to protect herself.  

“This has been extremely stressful, not just for me but for the frontline nurses and for the community as a whole,” she said. “It’s going to change the way we think about things. It’s going to change the way we practice medicine.  

“We need to be patient and understand that this too shall pass. And we’ve got to understand that, through all of this, we’re going to end up learning something along the way.” 

The labor and delivery nurse 

Around this time last year, Gina Lizarraga was giving birth to a baby son. She can hardly imagine what it would be like now. 

“If I had to be having my son now, I would be afraid to be in the hospital,” Lizarraga said. “I wouldn’t know if I was going to get COVID-19, if my newborn baby was going to get it. And not being able to have that big post-baby celebration, which everyone looks forward to. As a mom, I can see how that might be something that you look back on and say, ‘That was kind of sad and scary.’ ” 

Lizarraga can speak to such scenarios with more authority than just as a mother. The 2012 CSUSM nursing graduate is also a labor and delivery nurse at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. She’s not working a full-time schedule while she raises her son, but about a half-dozen days a month, she’s around pregnant women who are preparing to bring children into a frightening world and uncertain future.  

“Even seasoned mothers who’ve been through it before have some anxiety under normal circumstances,” she said. “With COVID-19, all of that becomes heightened.” 

The UC Davis hospital is limiting visitors during deliveries to just the spouse or partner, which means none of the traditional celebrations involving extended family and gifts and balloons.  

“There’s possibly some loss of what people envisioned their birthing experience would have been a year ago,” Lizarraga said. 

Lizarraga’s husband, John James, is also a nurse. He was one class behind her at CSUSM, where they met. James works in the intensive care unit at UC Davis Medical Center, but his team has not been identified as the primary one for treating COVID-19 patients. 

That doesn’t make the fear any lesser.  

“The idea of being at the hospital is scary,” Lizarraga said. “And when my husband goes to work, that scares me, too, him coming home. As nurses, in a way, we don’t know. Do we have COVID-19? Did we get it? Do we take 14 days? Are we permanently quarantining ourselves from everything? We just always assume that maybe we have it.  

“I’m proud that I’m a nurse, but I’m more proud of the nurses and physicians that I work with because I see how much heart they have and how much they put out every day.” 

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bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

“Elder abuse is prevalent across all socioeconomic levels in every community,” Carney said. “And it is a public health epidemic that we’ve really only just started to respond to in the past 10 to 15 years.”

The forward notes that the United Nations has emphasized the importance of preparing for an aging population, with a strong focus on protecting and promoting the rights of the vulnerable, and the book explores the challenges facing the healthcare and criminal justice systems in preventing and addressing abusive behaviors. By 2050, more than 20 percent of the population will be older than 65. Yet, as the book notes, one of the major problems that investigators and prosecutors have faced is a lack of reporting in elder abuse.

“Elder Abuse: Forensic, Legal and Medical Aspects” is packed with insight on the psychological, financial and physical abuse and neglect that is widespread among the elderly and comprises a dozen chapters with titles such as “Interpersonal Violence and the Elderly,” “Sexual Assault and Rape of the Older Person,” Psychological Abuse” and “The Criminal Justice Response to Elder Abuse.” Each chapter was written by an expert, or experts, in their field, including Carney.

The 282-page text is aimed at a wide audience.

“We wanted to create a book with a very broad appeal, including educators and students, law enforcement, health care professionals, social workers and multidisciplinary teams who work with the elderly,” Carney said. “Anyone interested in the topic of elder abuse can get something valuable out of this book.”

Carney said she was contacted by Elsevier, a global information analytics business that publishes everything from books to digitized journals founded on science and research to help tackle the most urgent human crises, after attending a 2017 American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference. The publisher followed up with a request for a prospectus. By the end of the year, Carney had lined up a list of authors, and writing got under way in January 2018. The book was released in October.

Besides Carney, authors include Kimberly Liang, a former pharmacology professor at CSUSM; Paul Greenwood, the former head of the elder abuse prosecution unit at the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office; Robert Stabley, deputy medical examiner at the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office; and Russ Neuhart, a human development lecturer at CSUSM. Among other contributors are Diana K. Faugno of the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage; Rita A. Jablonski, of the School of Nursing, Department of Adult Chronic and Continuing Care, at the University of Alabama; and Kathleen Thimsen at the Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes Jewish College in St. Louis.

Carney is an associate professor in the CSUSM School of Nursing who is a Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and her doctoral dissertation, Battery and Abuse in the Elderly: A Forensic Analysis, has been presented both nationally and internationally. Her background includes working for a decade as a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) at Palomar Hospital in Escondido who teamed with law enforcement personnel in collecting evidence for sexual assault cases. Her research later turned toward elder abuse and prevention.

“I think you can take the measure of a community by how it treats its elderly,” she said.

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Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

The project was a collaboration between CSUSM’s sustainability program, under the guidance of Juliana Goodlaw-Morris, and the Office of Inclusive Excellence, under the guidance of Ariel Stevenson.

CSUSM was recognized for its creation of an environmental justice internship program, which began in fall 2018. Goodlaw-Morris noted that the collaboration is the next step in developing a comprehensive inclusive sustainability effort at CSUSM.

The California Higher Education Sustainability Conference is held annually to highlight research and case studies with "proven successes in curriculum development, operational programs and community partnerships."

Nursing rankings

CSUSM ranks first in the state by RegisteredNursing.org in its list of 2019 Best Online RN to BSN programs. There were 15 schools that met the website's criteria to be ranked. The university also ranks ninth in the fourth annual nursing school rankings by the website RNCareers.org, which ranked the top 35 universities in the state.

Two honored at Women of Impact Celebration

Mary Baker, a CSUSM nursing lecturer, and Arcela Núñez-Alvarez, research director of the National Latino Research Center, were among 10 women honored by State Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner Horvath for their contributions to the community at the inaugural 76-AD Women of Impact Celebration in April.

Civility Champions

Eight members of the campus community were honored as 2018-19 Civility Champions in April: Melissa Abeyta, Elvira Dominguez-Gomez, William Felty, Abráhan Monzón, Eduardo Negron, Shannon Nolan-Arañez, Kathrine Rolison and Paola Romo.

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

“After that conversation, I started thinking, and it was like, ‘Why don’t I just show him instead of telling him?’ ” Arevalo recalled. “You know, walk the walk, not talk the talk. So I went back to school determined to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a nurse.”

On May 19, Arevalo graduates from Cal State San Marcos with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. She picks up her diploma a day after her son, Angel Vidrio, secures his bachelor’s degree from CSUSM in biology.

“It’s pretty cool to graduate with your son,” said Arevalo, 39.

“No question,” agreed Angel, 22. “I’m really proud of what we’ve both done.”

Both grew up in San Diego’s North County, Arevalo graduating from San Marcos High School in 1996 and Angel graduating from Vista High School in 2014. Arevalo had planned to go to nursing school after high school, but those plans were put on hold when she became a mom at age 17. Instead, she enrolled at a technical school and secured the training needed to work as a medical assistant for the past 20 years, including 16 at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

“Going to college wasn’t something I could do at that point,” she said.

That changed when her son entered high school. She enrolled at MiraCosta College as a returning student in 2011. Raising three children (Angel has two younger brothers) and working full time, it wasn’t easy. Initially, one class per semester was all she could handle. But Arevalo persisted and earned her associate degree in liberal arts in May 2015.

She began the nursing program at CSUSM that fall. By that time, Angel was a CSUSM sophomore.

Said Arevalo: “At first, he was like, ‘Great mom. You had to go to the same college I’m going to? You couldn’t pick another one?’ But it’s worked out well. Our schedules are very different. We’ve crossed paths a few times and he’ll say ‘Hi.’ He doesn’t totally ignore me.”

It’s not that bad, Angel said. In fact, Angel, his brothers, his mom and stepdad, and his grandmother all live together just a mile or so from campus. “It’s not as though we don’t see each other.”

But there have been some comical moments.

“The first time we both went to school, my grandma dropped us off and we both got out with our backpacks and I looked at her and said, ‘All right. Have fun. I guess,’ ” Angel said.

The two occasionally run into each other on campus, but not often. Arevalo’s clinical work for her nursing program included assignments at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, the VA Healthcare System in La Jolla, and Balboa Naval Medical Center in San Diego, in addition to an externship at the UCSD Medical Center and an internship at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa. Her pediatric rotation was at Rady Children’s Hospital. Between the clinical assignments, studying, and taking care of her family, she had to cut back her hours at work.

“It was brutal, I’m not going to lie,” Arevalo said. “At the beginning of every semester I kept asking myself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But when you set a goal for yourself and you have the support of your friends and family, you do what you have to do.”

Once she passes the National Council Licensure Examination needed to start working as a registered nurse, Arevalo has a job waiting for her at Rady Children’s Hospital.

“It’s going to be beyond awesome to be able to stay at Rady Children’s Hospital and work with the nurses who have been my mentors over the years,” she said.

Angel will spend the next year at Palomar College preparing for his master’s program in genetic counseling. He’s hoping to enroll at UC Irvine in the fall of 2019.

“It was a great decision to come here,” he said of CSUSM. “I’m glad I was able to share this with my mom.”

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

She isn’t done. Baker and fellow CSUSM nursing instructor Rosemary Gaines are on the verge of opening a fifth clinic as early as June at St. Patrick Catholic Church’s Father Raymond Moore Hall in Carlsbad.

“The need is there,” said Baker, who launched the Student Healthcare Project in 2011 when she was a graduate student who was also teaching at CSUSM.

The new clinic will be open on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month to coincide when volunteers at Father Raymond Moore Hall set up mobile showers and distribute food and clothing to the needy. Gaines and Baker are arranging to have a nurse practitioner or physician volunteer at the student-run center in the mornings when the other social services are provided.

The newest site complements a growing network that includes a clinic in Escondido, one in the San Diego neighborhood of Normal Heights, and two in Ocean Beach. Baker opened the first clinic in Ocean Beach in 2011.

“We saw one patient the first day,” she said. In 2017, more than 800 patients – nearly 90 percent of who were uninsured – were seen a total of 3,507 times. Nearly 30 percent said they would have gone to a hospital emergency room if the clinics were not available, saving the county an estimated $622,665 in unreimbursed emergency room costs.

The student-run clinics are supported financially through partnerships that include private donors, health care organizations, ministries, grants and the CSUSM School of Nursing. Not only do they provide needed care, they also offer students an opportunity to practice their skills in a community environment rather than solely in a hospital setting.

Baker said she always wanted to become a nurse, finally taking the plunge after 30 years in the printing business. At age 50, she enrolled at Cal State San Marcos and was part of the University’s first class to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing, part of the first class to earn a Master of Science in nursing, and part of the first class to earn a post-master’s degree certificate as a family nurse practitioner. It was while she was a graduate student that she, fellow student Michelle Alfe and faculty adviser Linnea Axman opened the first clinic in Ocean Beach.

“She is a powerful change agent in health care, championing vulnerable populations,” wrote Dr. Pam Kohlbry, associate professor, School of Nursing, in nominating Baker for the award. “Mary leads with a calm, centered, compassionate heart and is a true advocate for a holistic healing with the most vulnerable individuals and their families with complex health problems.”

Baker demurred when discussing the San Diego Business Journal Healthcare Heroes Award.

“What we do is such a team effort,” she said. “Our students work so hard to provide the care, doctors and nurse practitioners are coming in to volunteer their time, the mental health professionals are coming in to provide mental health counseling, and there are so many people who contribute financially. I’m very humbled and honored to be recognized by the award, but so many people are involved. It really belongs to them.”

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

The annual SDBJ Healthcare Heroes Awards honor individuals in the San Diego community who epitomize the spirit of the word “hero” by demonstrating exceptional leadership and innovation in the rapidly changing health care industry.

Baker oversees a network of student-run community health clinics that provide free medical care to uninsured or underinsured residents in San Diego. CSUSM undergraduate and graduate nursing students manage the weekly operations of the clinics and provide patient care with oversight from volunteer medical professionals as well as faculty and staff from the CSUSM School of Nursing and UCSD School of Medicine.

The four clinics—two in Ocean Beach, one in Normal Heights and one in Escondido—operate once or twice a week in donated spaces and with funding from donors and grants. Providers at the clinics offer holistic services ranging from urgent care and chronic disease management to social service referrals and case management. Between 2013 and 2017, the clinics had 16,500 encounters and served more than 2,400 patients. Nearly 700 CSUSM and UCSD students worked in the clinics for a combined 42,200 hours between 2014 and 2017. (Information was not available for 2013.)

In addition to managing the Student Healthcare Project, which was founded in 2011, Baker is a faculty member and clinical instructor in the CSUSM School of Nursing within the College of Education, Health and Human Services. An alumna herself, Baker holds a BSN, MSN (Clinical Nurse Specialist, Advanced Public Health) and Post MSN Certificate (Family Nurse Practitioner) from the school.

Visit the Student Healthcare Project website for more information.

About California State University San Marcos

Building on an innovative 28-year history, California State University San Marcos is a forward-focused institution, dedicated to preparing future leaders, building great communities and solving critical issues. Located on a 304-acre hillside overlooking the City of San Marcos, it is the only public four-year comprehensive university serving North San Diego, Southwest Riverside and South Orange Counties.

The University enrolls nearly 17,000 students. With approximately 2,000 employees, the institution is a Great College to Work For® (The Chronicle of Higher Education). As a recipient of the annual HEED Award since 2014—a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion—CSUSM is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment.

“This auspicious recognition is especially appreciated because it comes from our colleagues throughout the state of California,” said Dr. Lorna Kendrick, director of CSUSM’s School of Nursing. “It honors the hard work of our faculty, students and staff.”

CSUSM’s nursing programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. The National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) pass rate of the University’s students was 96 percent in 2016-17 and Kendrick notes it is currently 100 percent. The NCLEX is a standardized exam that each state board of nursing uses to determine whether a candidate is prepared for entry-level nursing practice.

“The honor is quite timely since we currently have a 100 percent NCLEX pass rate as well as a rich array of programs from traditional BSN, accelerated BSN, MSN, and we are beginning discussions to start a DNP program,” Kendrick said. “We are so proud and grateful.”

RegisteredNursing.org works to promote excellence in nursing through enabling future nurses with the tools they need to succeed. The website’s methodology for the rankings included NCLEX-RN exam pass rates. More information about the methodology used for the rankings is available online.

About California State University San Marcos

Building on an innovative 28-year history, California State University San Marcos is a forward-focused institution, dedicated to preparing future leaders, building great communities and solving critical issues. Located on a 304-acre hillside overlooking the City of San Marcos, it is the only public four-year comprehensive university serving North San Diego, Southwest Riverside and South Orange Counties.

The University enrolls nearly 17,000 students. With approximately 2,000 employees, the institution is a Great College to Work For® (The Chronicle of Higher Education). As a recipient of the annual HEED Award since 2014—a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion—CSUSM is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment.

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That was before she was introduced to the nursing faculty at Cal State San Marcos.

“Meeting the faculty here changed my mind about where I wanted to go,” said Kendrick, who began her position as CSUSM’s School of Nursing director on July 5. “It was truly getting to know the faculty and hearing their goals and who they were.

“Having been here for a few months, it was the best decision. What I saw during the interview process is truly who they are. This is an awesome, awesome faculty. I can’t say enough about them.”

Kendrick came to CSUSM from the University of Phoenix San Diego campus where she served as the director and campus college chair of the College of Health Professions School of Nursing. She has previously served in a variety of administrative and academic roles throughout the country, including associate director of the BSN program at Tennessee State University, director of clinical sites for Nashville General Hospital and faculty positions in Schools of Nursing at the University of Alaska, UCLA, Vanderbilt University and California Baptist University.

“Dr. Kendrick is a believer in situational leadership and stresses teamwork, transparency and compassion,” said Amy Carney, an associate professor who is serving a one-year appointment as the associate director of the School of Nursing. “She is a strong supporter of student-centered mentoring, and the School of Nursing is pleased to welcome her.”

As Kendrick settles into her new role, she is focusing on her goals for the School of Nursing. Among those goals are increasing faculty governance, growing global health experiences and building on relationships with community partners.

“I think the faculty are enjoying it and feeling empowered,” Kendrick said. “They’re always telling me they feel hopeful and excited, which is a good thing to hear.”

One of Kendrick’s first orders of business is finding more funding for the University’s four nurse-run community clinics. To that end, she has enlisted the aid of Ed Ashley, director of business community relations in the College of Business Administration, to help with some of the operational and strategic planning.

Kendrick has even stepped in to teach a course on the CSUSM at Temecula campus, which has helped her connect with students and better understand faculty challenges when teaching.

“I like to engage with students and I want them to know they can come and talk to me,” she said.

Teaching at the Temecula campus has added meaning for Kendrick, who fondly recalls meeting a group of students there during her interview process.

One of the students asked Kendrick what would make her stand above the other candidates. She said that with the number of experienced nursing leaders in the industry, any of the candidates would be a great choice. Each person might have a different focus, she said, but all would be great leaders for the School of Nursing.

But if there was one area that set Kendrick apart, it was her research experience. She received her doctorate and later worked at UCLA, a Tier 1 research institution, and her background and training will aid CSUSM faculty interested in developing research.

Kendrick describes herself as relational and says her leadership style mimics that. Whether she is attending a curriculum committee meeting or brings in faculty to discuss a topic, she wants to know their thoughts and ensure that everyone’s ideas are heard.

It all comes back to how impressed she was by CSUSM’s faculty during her interview process.

“They are leaders in their own right,” Kendrick said. “They are hard workers, they are committed and they are fun to work with. It’s just a delightful group of people. It was their personalities and their character that caused me to really want to come here.”

-- Deborah Bennett

She began training as a nurse at the age of 14 in a small medical center serving the rural, border town of Deming, New Mexico. Today, Deborah Bennett is training a new generation of health care professionals as an instructor and Nursing Simulation Director at Cal State San Marcos.

“My passion is teaching and serving the needs of our students,” Bennett said.

Bennett comes from a family of nurses, and her aunt ran the nursing program at the only hospital in the dusty town of Deming. When Bennett showed an interest in nursing, her aunt put her to work learning everything from checking blood pressures and vital signs to helping patients get out of bed and assisting new moms in the maternity ward. Her career would go on to include working as a nurse educator at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach and nurse manager at Children’s Primary Care Medical Group and Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Centers in San Diego.

When Dr. Judy Papenhausen was charged with putting together CSUSM’s nursing program, Bennett was one of the first people she called. Bennett developed or taught more than eight new courses during her first few years alone, all while earning high marks from her students who describe her as a passionate, effective instructor. Her work was recognized through the President’s Award for Outstanding Lecturer in 2009.

“We’re innovative, we have quality students and we’re providing quality nurses,” said Bennett, who added that well more than 200 nursing students enroll at the university each year. “Without CSUSM there would be a shortage of nurses in our area.”

Dr. Kendrick has been the Director and Campus College Chair of the College of Health Professions School of Nursing for the University of Phoenix San Diego campus since 2014. She has also served in a variety of administrative and academic roles throughout the country, including director of the BSN program at Tennessee State University, director of clinical sites for Nashville General Hospital and faculty positions in Schools of Nursing at the University of Alaska, UCLA and California Baptist University.

“I am thrilled because CSUSM is truly an academic jewel, involved in a variety of exciting endeavors,” Dr. Kendrick said. “I am most excited because I saw in the eyes of each faculty, student and staff my own potential for growth.”

Throughout her academic and administrative career, Dr. Kendrick has remained active in clinical and professional settings. She has maintained a private practice for more than 23 years, which honed her leadership experience and keen business acumen.

Dr. Kendrick also has extensive experience with administering and teaching online classes and utilizing virtual instructional technologies.

“I believe I will experience life in extraordinary ways through each person I encounter on my CSUSM journey as we work together using higher education to touch the lives of our local and global communities,” Dr. Kendrick said.

Additionally, Dr. Amy Carney has agreed to serve a one-year appointment as Associate Director of the School of Nursing starting July 1. Dr. Carney joined CSUSM as an assistant professor in 2010 and was promoted to associate professor and granted tenure in the fall of 2016.

Among Dr. Carney’s responsibilities will be assisting faculty with student concerns and building the School of Nursing schedule.

“Having been active as an educator in the School of Nursing since 2010, I’m looking forward to this new adventure and supporting students administratively,” Dr. Carney said.

About California State University San Marcos

Building on an innovative 27-year history, California State University San Marcos is a forward-focused institution, dedicated to preparing future leaders, building great communities and solving critical issues. Located on a 304-acre hillside overlooking the City of San Marcos, it is the only public four-year comprehensive university serving North San Diego, Southwest Riverside and South Orange Counties.

The University enrolls over 15,000 students. With approximately 2,000 employees, the institution is a Great College to Work For® (The Chronicle of Higher Education). As a recipient of the annual HEED Award since 2014—a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion—CSUSM is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment.

The students are attending CSUSM through a recently awarded grant called Graduating American Indians into Nursing (GAIN). Funding for the grant didn’t become official until shortly before the start of the fall semester, which meant working fast to get the students on campus.

Fortunately, Dr. Deborah Morton, an assistant professor of public health and the co-principal investigator on the grant, had already identified potential students for the program thanks to help from Geneva Lofton-Fitzsimmons and Dr. Joely Proudfit.

Dr. Denise Boren, co-principal investigator and the director of the School of Nursing, then worked to ensure a smooth enrollment process. The students visited campus on the Friday before classes started for a quick meeting and dived right into the program the following week.

“It was a miracle,” said Mary Sandoval, one of the students enrolled in the master’s program. “This came to me and I couldn’t believe it was true. I think everybody in the program had that same experience.”

The grant covers tuition, books, fees and a stipend of $1,500 per month for each student. Funding was for six students, but one had to withdraw, a void Boren and Morton will try to fill next fall.

Boren is stepping down from her role as School of Nursing director at the end of the academic year to focus on grants and being more directly involved with the GAIN students. The move will also allow her to take on additional responsibilities related to the grant, and she is optimistic that will free up additional funds to add a couple more students through the grant.

“Nurses spend so much time with patients,” Boren said. “It’s really important to have nurses who understand the American Indian culture.”

Morton said the grant had covered the same four universities for over 20 years. However, she said spots opened up for newcomers because two of the universities became self-sufficient and no longer needed to rely on the grant. That opened the door for CSUSM.

“We have a nursing shortage in California and we have more American Indians than any other state,” Morton said. “It was a great opportunity for us.”

Mary has been working as a nurse for Riverside-San Bernardino County Indian Health for nearly 20 years. She has long wanted to pursue her master’s, but didn’t have the means to do so while working full time and raising five children.

While her children are now adults, she is still paying off her undergraduate loans and working full time. But the GAIN grant has enabled her to pursue her master’s while continuing to work.

Mary’s niece, Nesune Madrigal, is another of the students who is attending CSUSM through the GAIN grant.

Nesune attended Mt. San Jacinto College and had been considering transferring to CSUSM to pursue her bachelor’s in nursing. Once the grant became a reality, it made for an easy decision.

“I got a call on a Friday about a week before fall semester,” Nesune said. “I was shocked and overwhelmed. It’s such an honor to be chosen to go into the program knowing how competitive it is to get in. I’m really grateful for the opportunity.”

Nesune said that Boren was instrumental in not only making the accelerated enrollment process go smoothly, but also ensuring that the students have access to all of the resources necessary to succeed.

“It’s not just their academics,” Boren said. “We want to make sure everything is OK in their personal life and that they have everything they need to be successful in the program.”

One of the requirements of the grant is that students, upon graduation, are required to spend an equal amount of time working in an Indian Health Service-approved clinic in their new jobs for scholarship payback. For the CSUSM students, that means committing three years after graduation to working for an Indian Health Service-approved clinic. That commitment aligns perfectly with the goals of Mary and Nesune, who both want to help improve healthcare for American Indians.

“I want other children and young people who come in to see me there doing that job so that they might be encouraged to do the same thing and hopefully increase the number of American Indian healthcare providers that we’ll have at our clinics,” Mary said.

Said Nesune: “I want to take what I learn back to my reservation and my tribal community where it’s greatly needed. We really need more of our people in the medical field. There definitely can be improvements. I want to be part of that improvement and bringing our people forward in healthcare.”

“It really builds your confidence,” said Erica, who will graduate from the SLP master’s program in May. “The simulations really help show us that we do have the necessary skills. We have what it takes to go out there and apply what we’ve learned in our classes. They want to show us through these simulations that we have no reason to doubt ourselves.”

The simulations are an example of the student-centered approach used by SLP, which has enlisted CSUSM’s School of Nursing for help in developing the simulations.

Deb Bennett, CSUSM’s nursing simulation director, has brought her expertise to SLP to aid in the development and execution of the simulations.

Bennett said simulation methodology is a case or scenario developed in a real-world situation that allows students to work with either a human actor or a high-fidelity mannequin to experience certain situations they might face in the real world.

“It’s a safe environment for them to learn,” Bennett said. “Students love it. They always want more, so we’re always looking at different ways that we can implement more simulations and more scenarios.”

Lori Heisler, the SLP department chair, said they want to integrate simulations across the entire curriculum. The simulations give students an opportunity to learn in a low-stakes environment while receiving immediate feedback that helps them learn from their mistakes.

“We’re there to help coach them through and help them through this learning environment before they have to go out in the real world,” Heisler said.

Count BreeAnn Montes Ayala among those who credit the simulation program for helping them thrive in the working world.

BreeAnn, who graduated from CSUSM last spring, is a speech-language pathologist for Escondido Union School District. She said she was pleasantly surprised by the authenticity and effectiveness of the simulations, also noting that it provided the opportunity to collaborate with other disciplines.

“Helping a student realize their fullest potential is a daily task and requires a team effort,” BreeAnn said. “I consider myself fortunate to have participated in this simulation as it was one of the most authentic experiences I have taken away from my graduate/academic career.”

Bennett said the simulation program is continuing to grow. She is training SLP faculty the process of writing cases for students to go through the simulations.

“The key is realism,” Bennett said. “We go in and say, ‘This is your client, this is your patient. Go in and take care of them.’ ”

The realistic representation of patients by the actors impressed Erica, particularly for a simulation in which actors portrayed patients with Parkinson’s disease. The actor with whom Erica and her partner worked never broke character, even exhibiting the trembling one might see from a Parkinson’s patient.

In a different simulation, students from the School of Nursing portrayed patients, which provided another excellent perspective for the SLP students. Erica noted that the language used to communicate varies widely depending on whether they’re speaking with a patient, parent, doctor or nurse.

Nursing students provided feedback after the simulation about the type of information nurses would want in a hospital setting, which proved invaluable to the SLP students.

“That really helped to prepare me for when I went into my hospital placements,” Erica said. “When I started talking to the nurses in the hospital, I wasn’t as nervous. When you’re in the medical setting, you have this sense of pressure on you. All the simulation experiences for the medical side was really helpful in relieving a lot of that pressure.”

Bennett and Heisler both noted that the simulation experience offers an important opportunity not only for SLP students, but for students in other areas such as nursing and social work to gain a greater understanding of everybody’s role in treating patients.

“You don’t work in a silo when you’re out in the real world,” Heisler said. “This is good for the students. We’re trying to really model the real-world experience of collaboration and inter-professional education because that’s what really happens in the school setting or the hospital setting.”

CSUSM nursing students will train as many people as possible how to perform hands-only CPR during the event. The training for hands-only CPR takes less than two minutes.

Tables and mannequins will be set up throughout Kellogg Plaza on CSUSM’s campus from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. CSUSM students, faculty and staff, as well as members from throughout the community, are invited to participate.

Each year, more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the United States, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). Hands-only CPR has been shown to be as effective as conventional CPR for cardiac arrest at home, at work or in public and can double or even triple a victim’s chance of survival, according to the AHA.

What: Save a Life, a training session for hands-only CPR

Who: Open to CSUSM students, faculty, staff and local community

When: Thursday, March 9, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Where: Kellogg Plaza, California State University San Marcos

Cost: Free

Parking: For driving directions, campus map and parking fees, visit the CSUSM Parking Guide.

Information: Email licht009@cougars.csusm.edu

About California State University San Marcos

Building on an innovative 27-year history, California State University San Marcos is a forward-focused institution, dedicated to preparing future leaders, building great communities and solving critical issues. Located on a 304-acre hillside overlooking the City of San Marcos, it is the only public four-year comprehensive university serving North San Diego, Southwest Riverside and South Orange Counties.

The University enrolls over 15,000 students. With approximately 2,000 employees, the institution is a Great College to Work For® (The Chronicle of Higher Education). As a recipient of the annual HEED Award since 2014—a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion—CSUSM is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment.

RegisteredNursing.org ranked the programs at 127 colleges and universities throughout California by assessing factors that represent how well a program supports students toward licensure and beyond.

“CSUSM’s School of Nursing has excellent baccalaureate and masters programs and we are honored to receive this external validation of the work being done by our students, faculty and staff,” said Denise Boren, director of the School of Nursing.

CSUSM’s nursing programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. The National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) pass rate of the University’s students is 95 percent. The NCLEX is a standardized exam that each state board of nursing uses to determine whether a candidate is prepared for entry-level nursing practice.

RegisteredNursing.org works to promote excellence in nursing through enabling future nurses with the tools they need to succeed.

The site’s methodology for the rankings included NCLEX-RN exam pass rates. If schools had the same overall NCLEX-RN pass rate, additional characteristics considered included the number of students taking the NCLEX-RN exam, with the higher the number the better the ranking position; and the number of years of exam data available, the schools with more years of NCLEX-RN pass rate data earning the greater ranking position.

About California State University San Marcos

Building on an innovative 27-year history, California State University San Marcos is a forward-focused institution, dedicated to preparing future leaders, building great communities and solving critical issues. Located on a 304-acre hillside overlooking the City of San Marcos, it is the only public four-year comprehensive university serving North San Diego, Southwest Riverside and South Orange Counties.

The University enrolls over 15,000 students. With approximately 2,000 employees, the institution is a Great College to Work For® (The Chronicle of Higher Education). As a recipient of the annual HEED Award since 2014—a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion—CSUSM is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment.

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Carolina, a third-year student at Cal State San Marcos, has overcome difficult challenges – from her father’s death when she was 5 years old to growing up in a family that struggled with poverty – to become one of 24 students selected to receive the 2016 CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement. Carolina was named the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation Scholar.

The CSU's highest recognition of student achievement, the awards provide scholarships of $6,000 to $12,000 to CSU students who demonstrate superior academic performance, personal accomplishments, community service and financial need.

“Carolina has worked very hard and has overcome financial hardships and family obligations to achieve her remarkable 4.0 academic record,” said Perla Rivas, a counselor for Cal State San Marcos’ TRiO Student Support Services (SSS) program.

Carolina is part of the TRiO SSS program, which assists first-generation, low-income and/or students with disabilities toward the successful completion of their college degree.

“Carolina’s undergraduate work is truly impressive,” Rivas said. “Carolina is intelligent, highly motivated, humble, compassionate and has a strong commitment to gaining the necessary experience to build her nursing skills.”

Carolina has volunteered more than 250 hours with the Pioneers Memorial Healthcare District and the Pathmaker Internship at Palomar Medical Center. As an intern, Carolina has learned valuable clinical skills and has been exposed to the rigors of a nursing career.

“I saw first-hand the effect that having a positive attitude toward a patient who’s at the end stages of their life can have,” Carolina said. “Just being that comfort, that hug, holding their hand. I want to make that same difference my grandmother’s nurse made in our lives to other people.”

The CSU Board of Trustees, CSU Foundation Board of Governors, faculty, students and staff publicly recognized the scholars during the CSU Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 20. The scholars include one student from each of the CSU's 23 campuses, along with the top-scoring CSU-wide scholar.

More than 340 CSU students have been honored with this award since the program’s creation in 1984.

The program was originally established by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation as an endowed scholarship fund to honor William Randolph Hearst, founder of the Hearst newspaper chain. In 1999, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation partnered with the CSU Board of Trustees to supplement the endowment with contributions from CSU Trustees and private donors.

About California State University San Marcos 

Building on an innovative 26-year history, California State University San Marcos is a forward-focused institution, dedicated to preparing future leaders, building great communities and solving critical issues. Located on a 304-acre hillside overlooking the City of San Marcos, it is the only public four-year comprehensive university serving North San Diego, Southwest Riverside and South Orange Counties.

The University enrolls over 14,000 students. With approximately 2,000 employees, the institution is a Great College to Work For® (The Chronicle of Higher Education). As a recipient of the annual HEED Award since 2014—a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion—CSUSM is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment.

Carolina watched her grandmother battle breast cancer for 14 years. Her grandmother’s emotional state was a like a roller-coaster ride, rising and falling as a direct result of the disposition of the doctor or nurse.

It was seeing the help and kindness her grandmother received from a hospice nurse that inspired Carolina to pursue a career in nursing.

It wouldn’t be an easy road. Carolina’s father died when she was 5 and her mother struggled to support Carolina and her siblings.

But Carolina is well on her way to achieving her dream of helping others just as that nurse helped her grandmother.

A third-year student at Cal State San Marcos, Carolina recently received a welcome reward for her hard work, earning the CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement by being named the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation Scholar. The Trustees' Award is given annually to one student from each of the 23 CSU campuses to those who demonstrate superior academic performance, personal accomplishments, community service and financial need.​​​

“Carolina has worked very hard and has overcome financial hardships and family obligations to achieve her remarkable 4.0 academic record,” said Perla Rivas, a counselor for CSUSM’s TRiO Student Support Services (SSS).

Carolina is part of the TRiO SSS program, which assists first-generation, low-income and/or students with disabilities toward the successful completion of their college degree.

“Carolina’s undergraduate work is truly impressive," Rivas said. "Carolina is intelligent, highly motivated, humble, compassionate and has a strong commitment to gaining the necessary experience to build her nursing skills.”

It wasn’t until her sophomore year of high school that Carolina even began dreaming about attending a four-year university. Growing up in Imperial Valley, she said her high school teachers played a big role in encouraging all students to strive to attend college.

While Carolina’s grades were strong throughout high school, the day-to-day financial difficulties her family faced were a burden that made it difficult to think about attending a four-year university

“My mom has worked very hard to give us everything we needed," Carolina said. "Growing up I had my family, and that was more than enough for me."

Carolina received fee waivers to apply to four CSU campuses. She received acceptances from San Diego State and Cal State San Bernardino with the caveat that she would have to change her major because each school’s nursing program was impacted.

CSUSM’s program also was impacted and Carolina had been told only about 10 percent of applicants are accepted into the program.

But she was part of that 10 percent.

“I never really imagined myself being here in my blue uniform in the nursing program,” she said.

Coming from a low-income family, Carolina was able to receive financial assistance for tuition, which helped her mom overcome initial concerns about how they would pay for college. She has managed living expenses by staying with a relative in Southwest Riverside County and commuting to CSUSM.

Though she is only now officially a nursing major after two years as pre-health, Carolina has already logged more than 200 hours at two hospitals and still volunteers four hours a week at Palomar Medical Center as a medical interpreter.

The experience has only reaffirmed her decision to pursue nursing.

She vividly remembers the frequent trips to the hospital for her grandmother’s cancer treatment. And the memory of one nurse’s compassion as her grandmother was in hospice still looms large in her decision to follow this path.

Doctors frequently told Carolina’s grandmother she had a certain amount of time left. But the answer was different when her grandmother asked the nurse how much time she had left.

“The nurse took her foot and said, ‘I don’t see an expiration date,’ ” Carolina said. “No one can tell you when you’re going to go. That made a big impact on all of us. That’s what hospice workers do. They make sure people and their families are comfortable in their last days with each other.

“It’s something I want to do. I saw first-hand the effect that having a positive attitude toward a patient who’s at the end stages of their life can have. Just being that comfort, that hug, holding their hand. I know it’s going to be hard, but I think I can do it and I’ll be able to make that same difference that nurse made in our lives to other people.”

“The first three weeks they all run around like their hair is on fire,” said Mary Baker, who is the director of the School of Nursing Student Healthcare Project. “Then they really start to jell and work together as a team. And then they get really good at it and they graduate. And then we have another group to train.”

CSUSM’s Student Healthcare Project, which was founded in 2011, includes four student-run clinics that provide holistic care to uninsured and underserved members of the community while training the next generation of healthcare professionals.

The clinics provide students an opportunity to practice their skills in a community environment rather than solely in a hospital setting.

“It’s case management, it’s looking at social determinants of health,” Baker said. “It’s looking at poverty levels, lack of housing, lack of food, all of those kinds of things.”

Each clinic is located in donated space with two in Ocean Beach, one in National City and one that opened in July in Escondido. The clinics are open from twice a month to twice a week, depending on the location.

“Every location is different,” Baker said. “Each has its own personality and its own population base.”

The newest location in Escondido has already made an impact in the community. It opened in July with one patient visit. That grew to four patients in the second week and 18 by the fourth week. And that growth has come entirely from word-of-mouth and fliers distributed in the community.

“It’s really taken off in Escondido,” Baker said.

The summer-session students helped set up the Escondido clinic while community volunteers assisted with things like interior painting and putting up a wall and doors. Most of the equipment in the two exam rooms, as well as the majority of supplies, arrived via donation.

The clinics rely completely on donations and grants for funding, and they’re hoping to grow that base of donors. The Student Healthcare Project also has a group of healthcare providers, including many from CSUSM’s School of Nursing, who volunteer their time to help supervise the students.

While a medical appointment is 15 minutes at most clinics, the Student Healthcare Project clinics provide 30-minute medical appointments and 90-minute case-management appointments. Students will even help patients sign up for programs like MediCal and CalFresh or assist in finding shelter beds.

“We try to look at the patient holistically, so whatever the patient needs to help them with their health,” Baker said. “Sometimes it’s unusual stuff that’s really a big barrier to them. Other times they just need to come in and be seen. The patient is the center. It’s not the provider or the doctor, it’s the patient.

“All of the patients who come in are underserved. We don’t charge any money for the visit at all. It’s all free.”

A student serves as a clinic lead for each shift with the responsibility of directing all of the projects and work flow. The clinic lead rotates to give every student an opportunity.

“It’s a challenge for some of them,” said Ryan Sellers, project manager of the Student Healthcare Project. “You can tell some people have not led other people. It’s a sink or swim kind of thing, so sometimes we have to help them out and give them some structure.”

The clinics have increased their patient interactions and patients served every year. The clinic had more than 8,000 total encounters between 2013 and 2015 and served more than 1,000 patients in that span. Although numbers aren’t available for 2013, total student hours working in the clinics for 2014-15 was over 22,000.

“The credit really goes to the students,” Baker said. “They work really hard. They are the ones who make this thing fly. It’s because of their hard work and heart. They give a lot. And they’re why we’re able to do it.”

Visit the Student Healthcare Project website for more information.

Hansbrough came to CSUSM as a part-time clinical faculty member in 2010. She is currently collaborating with colleagues at Veterans Administration centers in San Diego and Chicago to research the nurse-patient relationship and how it affects quality of patient care.

Teaching and research allows her to meld two major interests.

“I have always enjoyed teaching,” Hansbrough said. “I did that at the bedside with new nurses and nurses new to burn care for decades. I was involved with developing certification standards for burn care and worked with a burn research team. So when I decided to step away from direct health care on the service side, it made sense to move into academia where I could blend my teaching and research passions.”

She has no regrets about coming to CSUSM.

“Cal State San Marcos affords me the opportunity to work everyday doing what I love with wonderful colleagues,” said Hansbrough. “I appreciate being able to work with smart and enthusiastic students and hopefully influence them to be the next generation of professional nurses who will lead the ongoing changes that are needed in health care.”

As a young girl living in New York City in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Jean already knew that she wanted to be a nurse, drawn to the profession because of her curiosity for science and interest in how the human body functions. After graduating from high school, she went on to train and received her RN at Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey. Shortly after the end of WWII in 1945, Jean married her high school sweetheart, Kendrick Quinby.

Her son, Dave Quinby, remembers his mom as a do-er.

“My mom was soft spoken, but what I grew to learn was that once she got out of the home and into her career she was an important person—she made decisions, she took on leadership roles,” he said.

Over the span of her five-decade career she provided compassionate patient care in private practices and hospitals, including the emergency room. In the 1960s, she served as director of the El Paso Community College School of Licensed Vocational Nursing in El Paso, Texas. During her tenure there, students in the program achieved three of the top ten scores in the state of Texas, and the school’s average score was 30 points higher than the state average.

After retiring in the late 1970s, Jean and her husband moved to San Marcos but Jean soon realized that she was not well-suited for retirement and decided to return to her beloved profession. From 1978 until her second and final retirement in 1992, she was the charge RN at Redwood Terrace Senior Living in Escondido where she earned the titles of Employee of the Month, Quarter, Year and, ultimately, Grand Employee of the Year.

After her passing in 2014, Dave and his wife, Linda, decided to honor Jean’s life and legacy with an endowed scholarship for continuing nursing students at CSUSM.

“She would be quietly thrilled, touched and surprised—she would never have expected this type of honor,” said Dave. “She lived in San Marcos for 29 years and watched with interest as CSUSM was built. It made sense to honor her in this way.”

“We also knew that we wanted to help students who might not have a chance to succeed without a little financial support,” said Linda. “It felt like the right thing to do at the time—and then afterward, we realized it felt really good to give too.”

If you’d also like to experience the joy of giving to a scholarship and supporting students in their journey through higher education, contact CSUSM University Advancement at www.csusm.edu/giving or 760-750-4400.

“This is beautiful. I’m really impressed,” said nursing alumna Tracie Neff, a medical-surgical nurse at Sharp Memorial Hospital, who attended the Open House in February. “This is what I always envisioned a nursing school to look like.”

The renovation of the third floor of University Hall to create an on-campus home for the School of Nursing was completed in December 2014. The result is an attractive, 12,000-square-foot facility with the additional space and enhancements to meet the needs of the School, which has grown rapidly in the last several years, to offer bachelor’s and master’s programs with many flexible options. The new facility has a larger nursing skills lab with 11 beds, a state-of-the art simulation theater and four mock exam rooms designed for use by graduate students in the nurse practitioner program. In addition, there are eight faculty offices, nine lecturer stations and an entrance to the school from Palm Court.

Denise Boren, director of SoN, said the school’s on-campus location would offer many opportunities for greater camaraderie and collaborations with the campus community.

“Our students will have the chance to mingle with other students on campus and use facilities like the University Student Union,” Boren said. “Our faculty will get to know the faculty here. Being on campus gives us greater opportunities to collaborate with other departments within the College of Education, Health and Human Services that we are a part of. We are working with faculty from speech language pathology, social work and kinesiology to develop scenarios where our students can work together.”

It’s all in a day’s work for Holyfield, a student manager at the free clinic, one of four in San Diego County run by the School of Nursing (SoN) at Cal State San Marcos. Known collectively as the Student Healthcare Project, the clinics are managed by students who work under the supervision of licensed volunteer physicians, nurse practitioners and SoN faculty to provide free services to poor and uninsured community residents.

Holyfield, who will graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, hones her clinical skills by performing EKGs, changing catheters and doing pregnancy tests. She is learning about clinic operations as she manages inventory and updates electronic medical records.

The experience has made her keenly attuned to the needs of the clinic’s patients—the working poor, uninsured, the homeless and those who struggle with mental health and substance abuse issues.

“Working here has been an amazing experience for me,” Holyfield said. “This allows me to give back to patients who have had very little access to care. I have learned how to build trust and rapport with our patients. It’s wonderful to see that they look upon the clinic as a place they can come to.”

Dr. William “Gerry” Hardison, volunteer medical director of the Student Healthcare Project, has observed firsthand the impact of the clinic experience.

“The experience is unique for student nurses,” said Hardison, a retired physician. “They are case managers. They are social workers. The patient clientele that they see here, they will never see anywhere else. They learn a tremendous amount. I have learned a lot.”

The Student Healthcare Project was the brainchild of SoN faculty member Linnea Axman who broached the idea to her graduate students five years ago. Mary Baker and Michelle Alfe, now faculty members at SoN, jumped at the opportunity. The group began to work on the details of opening the first free clinic that could serve the homeless population in Ocean Beach while providing SoN’s baccalaureate and graduate students the opportunity to fulfill clinical rotation, community service and leadership requirements.

The Ocean Beach clinic opened in 2010. Three other locations were added in Ocean Beach, Oceanside and National City.

Baker is a teacher, mentor and sounding board for the nursing students who run the four clinics. As clinic co-director, she splits her time between all four sites as she guides students through every aspect of clinic operations, whether it’s writing grants, finding the best source for supplies or securing space for a wellness class.

“Being here teaches students some things they can’t learn in a classroom,” Baker said. “It changes the way they look at homeless people and others who are underserved. They hear their back stories and get to know them as people.”

One patient the students have come to know well is Terry Tyler. Soft spoken with a ready smile, the Philadelphia native had not seen a doctor in more than a decade until his swollen legs brought him to the Oceanside clinic about a year ago. Since then, the clinic has become his medical home. He comes in for regular checkups and has been able to manage his blood pressure. He helps around the clinic in any way he can. He pointed out with pride the pictures he had hung in the hallways and exam rooms for a recent fundraiser.

“I would be near death if it were not for the clinic,” said Tyler who lives in an Escondido shelter. “These people are my family. I feel at home here.”

The clinics offer a wide array of services including primary care, health education, mental health services, lab tests and case management for patients of all ages. In 2014 there were a combined 3,000 patient visits at the four locations. Nursing students also assist patients with enrollment in Medi-Cal and Covered California health plans, the CalFresh nutrition program and services such as transitional housing.

“We try to pick students that we feel would be the best fit here,” Baker said. “They have to be independent. They are responsible for everything from cleaning the bathroom to calling 911 if it’s necessary.”

Laketa Ducat, a nursing senior, fits the bill. She came to the Oceanside clinic to fulfill leadership requirements last fall and organized group walks, yoga classes and nutrition programs for patients and area residents. Energized by her experience, she returned in January as a clinic manager. Her responsibilities range from greeting patients to maintaining electronic health records, supervising volunteer staff and ordering clinic supplies.

Like many other students who work at the clinic, Ducat is grateful for the opportunity to serve patients who have had little access to health care.

“I hear from them about their struggles and needs, and celebrate their triumphs no matter how small,” she said. “I am given a daily opportunity to put a new face on a health care system that previously represented poor experiences or even failures in the past for our clients. I don't take that charge lightly. Our entire society benefits when we empower individuals to manage and care for their health.”

Like their students, SoN faculty members are drawn to the clinic for the chance to make a difference. Among them is Susan Andera.

“We are the medical home for people of all ages. Many did not have one before we came along,” said Andera, a nurse practitioner. “There’s definitely a great need. It’s challenging work. We give a lot but we get a lot more back.”

The SoN Student Health Project depends on donations from individuals and grants from private foundations for funding. Baker and her students write grants. They have reined in costs by securing free space donated by churches. They have formed partnerships with pharmacies and labs for subsidized medications and lab services. Recently, students organized a sale of art donated by local artists.

“We have some great partners who help us but it still costs a lot of money,” Baker said.

To learn more about how you can support the Student Healthcare Project, contact Mary Baker at sonhealthproject@csusm.edu.

SoN took the 13th spot in NurseJournal.org’s America’s Best Nursing Schools 2015 – Western Rankings. Criteria included institutional accreditation, National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) pass rate, undergraduate and graduate degrees offered, tuition, convenience, student retention rate and salary of graduates.

“We have an exceptional nursing school where students get a quality education,” said SoN Director Denise Boren. “We have a great faculty and the programs are rigorous. We focus on research and evidence-based practice.”

Boren also cited other factors that have made SoN a standout among nursing programs in the region.

“We have a 95 percent pass rate in the NCLEX ,” Boren said, referring to the national examination for the licensing of nurses. “Both our graduate and undergraduate programs are accredited by the Commission of Collegiate Nursing Programs. We provide state-of-the-art training facilities like the skills lab and simulation theater to our students.”

Other CSU nursing schools that made it to NurseJournal.org’s top 15 include Cal State Dominguez Hills, which took the top spot, and Chico State, ranked 10th.

America’s Best Nursing Schools 2015 – Western Rankings encompasses 442 nursing schools in the region.

“We set out to find the all-around best nursing schools in each region of the United States,” the website states. “To do this, we sat down with our community members to talk about what we think makes a good nursing school. We used 20 metrics and put them into five categories that we felt were both quantifiable (at least to a degree) and important: quality, affordability, convenience, satisfaction, and value.”

For a complete listing, visit http://nursejournal.org/articles/americas-best-nursing-schools.

About the CSUSM School of Nursing

Established in 2006, SoN is accredited by the Commission of Collegiate Nursing Programs (CCNP). The school is recognized statewide as an innovative leader in advancing nursing education. SoN prepares students in the bachelor’s and master’s degree programs by offering a sophisticated learning environment that includes a simulation theater with high-fidelity mannequins, a nursing skills lab, opportunities for research, and rigorous clinical experience at local hospitals and other health care facilities. The school also runs four free health clinics in San Diego and Oceanside where nursing students provide care to under-served populations.

“This is beautiful. I’m really impressed,” said nursing alumna Tracie Neff, a medical-surgical nurse at Sharp Memorial Hospital. “This is what I always envisioned a nursing school to look like.”

Guided tours took visitors through the state-of-the-art skills lab and simulation theater featuring hi-fidelity mannequins. There were presentations on the Student Healthcare Project, which offers free medical services to the poor and uninsured at four clinics in San Diego County. Visitors also had the opportunity to interact with nursing faculty and students.

Christy Wilson, a long-time SoN supporter and executive director of the Rancho Santa Fe Foundation, was among the visitors who took in the sophisticated learning environment.

“The technology here is extraordinary,” Wilson said. “I also love the fact that the School of Nursing is now integrated into the campus.”

Janet Powell, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Services, and Denise Boren, director of the SoN, welcomed visitors.

“The open house went really well,” Boren said. “It was a great opportunity to let the campus community know what nursing students do. Our guests got a really good tour, met with our students, faculty and staff and learned about our programs.”

The renovation of the third floor of University Hall to create an on-campus facility for the SoN was completed in December 2014. The result is an attractive, 12,000-square-foot facility with the additional space and enhancements to meet the needs of the school which has grown rapidly in the last several years to offer bachelor’s and master’s programs with many flexible options. The new facility has a larger nursing skills lab with 11 beds, a state-of-the art simulation theater and four mock exam rooms designed for use by graduate students in the nurse practitioner program. In addition, there are eight faculty offices and nine lecturer stations, and an entrance to the school from Palm Court.

“This facility is so new and different. Everybody who has been here is in awe,” said Grace Tran, a nursing student. “This is so close to what’s out there in hospitals.”

Visitors to the open house will have the opportunity to take guided tours and interact with SoN students, faculty and staff. There will be demonstrations in the state-of-the-art nursing skills lab and simulation theater. The event, open to the public and the university community, will be held from noon to 2 p.m.

Since it began accepting students in the fall of 2006, SoN was housed in the Palomar Health building on Craven Drive. A project to renovate the third floor of University Hall to create an on-campus facility began in March 2014 under the stewardship of SoN, the CSUSM Department of Planning Design and Construction, and the architectural firm Harley Ellis Devereaux. The project was completed in December 2014.

The result is an attractive, 12,000-square foot facility with the additional space and enhancements to meet the needs of SoN which has grown rapidly in the last several years to offer bachelor’s and master’s programs with many flexible options. The new facility has a larger nursing skills lab with 11 beds, a state-of-the art simulation theater and four mock exam rooms designed for use by graduate students in the nurse practitioner program. In addition, the project has created eight faculty offices and nine lecturer stations, and an entrance to the school from Palm Court.

Denise Boren, Director of SoN, said the school’s on-campus location would offer many opportunities for greater camaraderie and collaborations with the campus community.

“Our students will have the chance to mingle with other students on campus and use facilities like the Student Union,” Boren said. “Our faculty will get to know the faculty here. Being on campus gives us greater opportunities to collaborate with other departments within the College of Education, Health and Human Services that we are a part of. We are working with faculty from Speech Language Pathology, Social Work and Kinesiology to develop scenarios where our students can work together.”

What: An open house event in celebration of the CSUSM School of Nursing’s move to the main campus. Previously, the school was located on Craven Dr. in San Marcos. Visitors to the open house will have the opportunity to take guided tours and interact with nursing students, faculty and staff. There will be demonstrations in the state-of-the-art nursing skills lab and simulation theater.

Where: The School of Nursing is located on the third floor of University Hall. CSUSM is located at 333 S. Twin Oaks Valley Rd.

A limited number of complimentary parking spots are available to attendees in Lot F.

When: Thursday, February 12 from noon to 2 p.m.

About the CSUSM School of Nursing

Established in 2006, SoN is recognized statewide as an innovative leader in advancing nursing education. SoN prepares students in the bachelor’s and master’s degree programs by offering a sophisticated learning environment that includes a simulation theater with high-fidelity mannequins, a nursing skills lab, opportunities for research, and rigorous clinical experience at local hospitals and other health care facilities. The school also runs four free health clinics in San Diego and Oceanside where nursing students provide care to underserved populations.

10,170 students have registered for classes so far.  The last day to add/drop a class is Monday, Jan. 27.

University Student Union Opens

CSUSM’s new student union, built to LEED Gold certification standards, opened to students for the first time today. The new four-story, 89,283-square-foot building is located near the center of campus, adjacent to Cesar Chavez Circle, with the fourth floor entrance opening onto Kellogg Plaza. Features include an outdoor amphitheater with seating for 400; an activity center with a game lounge; six new food options; a 3,000-square-foot green roof with outdoor seating areas; and a 9,000-square-foot ballroom. The outdoor pavilions and rooftop patio add an additional nearly 10,000 sq. ft. of useable space. The $43.9 million project was funded through student fees.

A formal grand opening ceremony is planned for Tuesday, Apr. 15.

On-going Construction Update

Construction continues for the University’s new Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) building with the installation of the roof at the end of this month. The new 20,000-square-foot, two-story building will be located adjacent to Parking Structure One and across the street from the University Student Union, on the corner of Campus Way and Campus View Drive. The Center is returning to campus after being housed across from campus in the Palomar Pomerado Health Building for the last 17 years. Construction is scheduled to be completed in fall 2014. The SHCS Building will feature clinical and counseling offices, a group conference/library room, a laboratory, waiting areas, health education spaces and a pharmacy. The $9.5 million project is funded through student fees.

The new stand-alone Veterans Center will start to take shape this semester. The new 1,000-square-foot house, donated by the Stevens Institute of Technology, will be constructed on a currently empty lot to the west of Markstein Hall and behind Science Hall 1, replacing a much smaller facility that opened in Craven Hall in 2008. The center will include an office, a conference room, a kitchen and a lounge and event space.  Unique technological features and innovations include solar shingles; a rainwater harvesting system with green wall and green roof; and energy-saving and water-saving heating, cooling and plumbing systems.

In support of CSUSM’s School of Nursing, renovation of an entire floor (approximately 11,000 square-feet) in University Hall will begin in February. The School of Nursing was established in 2006 in a medical office building across from campus. This project will allow the School of Nursing to be located on campus for the first time. The $2.5 million project is funded through the CSU Chancellor’s Office. Construction is expected to be completed in October 2014, with the opening scheduled for January 2015. The renovated floor includes art skills labs, simulation labs, mock exam rooms and administrative spaces.

Student Health Finds a New Home on Campus

Construction continues for the University's new Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) building with the installation of the roof at the end of January. The new 20,000 sq. ft., two-story building will be located adjacent to Parking Structure One and across the street from the University Student Union, on the corner of Campus Way and Campus View drive.The Center is returning to campus after being housed across the street in the Palomar Pomerado Health Building for the last 17 years. The SHCS Building will feature clinical and counseling offices, a group conference / library room, a laboratory, waiting areas, health education spaces and a pharmacy. Construction is scheduled to be completed in fall 2014.

An Eco-Friendly Space for Veterans

The new stand-alone  Veterans Center  will start to take shape this semester. The new 1,000 sq. ft. house, donated by the Stevens Institute of Technology, will makes it home on a hört empty lot to the west of Markstein Hall and behind Science Hall 1, and will replace a much smaller facility That opened in Craven Hall in 2008. The center will include an office, a conference room, a kitchen and a lounge and event space.

The Veteran's center was originally created by a team of interdisciplinary students at Stevens to be a net zero energy solar house. The facility is expected to retain many of its unique features and technological innovations,-including solar shingles; a rain water harvesting system with green wall and green roof; and energy-saving and water-saving heating, cooling and plumbing systems. It is anticipated to be in use in fall 2014.

Renovation for the School of Nursing

In support of CSUSM's School of Nursing, renovation of an entire floor (approximately 11,000 sq. Ft.) In University Hall will start in February. The School of Nursing was established in 2006 in a medical office building across from campus. This project will allow the School of Nursing to be located on campus for the first time.Construction is expected to be completed in October 2014, with the opening scheduled for January 2015. The renovated third floor will include art skills labs, simulation labs, mock exam rooms and administrative spaces.