National Nurses Week celebration will highlight Eastern's new nursing program

Event kicks off May 6 with speakers and tours

by Lucinda Weiss

Willimantic, CT (04/25/2024) — Eastern Connecticut State University will celebrate National Nurses Week on May 6-9 in recognition of the University's new Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and its partnership with Hartford HealthCare to prepare more nurses to work in eastern Connecticut.

The National Nurses Week celebration will open May 6 at 11 a.m. in the Johnson Room of the J. Eugene Smith Library with remarks by Terrence Cheng, chancellor of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system, and Stephen Donahue, director of operations at Hartford HealthCare's Center for Education Simulation and Innovation (CESI).

Other guests include Michael Davis, senior director of operations and nursing at Windham Hospital, and Kaitlin Bolster, regional director of professional practice in the East Region of Hartford HealthCare. Local clinical placement partners, area school guidance counselors, and the nursing students who begin their nursing education at Eastern in the fall 2024 semester are also invited to the first celebration of National Nurses Week at Eastern.

The opening ceremony will be followed by tours of Eastern's new nursing facilities at 12:30 p.m. in Goddard Hall and an exposition where CESI will demonstrate medical lab equipment. Other events during the week are an information table in the lobby of Goddard Hall hosted by health sciences students/faculty and a breakfast for nursing students on Wednesday, May 8, National Nursing Students Day.

"We are delighted to formally introduce our new four-year bachelor's program in nursing," said Christina Nadeau, director of clinical education for the Department of Health Sciences and Nursing. "Our first cohort of 35 students is finishing their first year of health sciences and liberal arts preparation courses, ready to begin nursing courses in the coming fall 2024 semester."

The students will practice in three clinical skills labs on campus, including a maternity and pediatric room, a two-bed hospital room and an examination room. In collaboration with Hartford HealthCare, an additional 6,700 square-foot simulation facility will be completed at Windham Hospital in fall 2025, where students will have access to state-of-the-art equipment and additional nursing instruction from hospital staff.

Over the summer, Nadeau plans to visit with nurses at Windham and Backus hospitals to further cement partnerships for clinical experiences. She envisions a "robust nursing curriculum, particularly for the eastern region." Some of Eastern's nursing students will be working this summer as patient care technicians, she noted.

Some 28 students so far have committed to enter the nursing program at Eastern in fall 2024 as the second class, and Nadeau anticipates a final class total of 64 for the second cohort of students. What makes Eastern's program unusual, she said, is that students enter directly into the nursing program rather than having to apply to the program after they have already entered Eastern.

For more information on Eastern's Nurses Week celebration, contact lindersonk@easternct.edu .

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