First Time National League of Nursing Opened Education Summit to SAC Students

SAC students were first cohort

(San Antonio, TX, September 23, 2008) – For the first time ever, the National League of Nursing (NLN) opened its Annual Education Summit to students.  The first special program, held last Friday, was free and exclusive for all 521 Nursing Education students from San Antonio College.

“Our nursing students were so excited to attend this once-in-a-lifetime educational opportunity,” said SAC Department of Nursing Education Assistant Professor Maricela Aguilar, MSN, RN, who coordinated with the NLN for the students’ entry to the conference. “Our faculty and I are so proud at how well they demonstrated their developing nursing professionalism.”  

Aguilar went on talk about the comments she and her colleagues heard from the NLN CEO, Dr. Beverly Malone, to countless NLN members from all over the country on how impressed they were of SAC students’ levels of interest and professionalism.

After the opening NCLEX-RN Mini-Prep Session about the national certification exam, students spent over an hour participating in a leadership panel discussion with four dynamic speakers who addressed issues of education, career planning and mobility.  Panelists included Dr. Beverly Malone, NLN CEO; Dr. Elaine Tagliareni, NLN President; Jenna Saunders, the 1998-99 President of the National Student Nurses Association (NSNA); and Dr. Carol Weingarten who serves as the NLN appointed consultant to the NSNA Board of Directors.  

“Such an honor!” said SAC nursing student Yvette Arriola as she almost hugged herself with contained, but explosive, excitement about being at the conference.  “No way could I afford this, and this is the national NLN, a real powerful group for us as nurses and students.”

Arriola works as a pediatric Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) for Christus Santa Rosa Hospital. Wanting to become a Registered Nurse, she is enrolled in SAC’s LVN-to-RN “career mobility” program.  A non-traditional, first-time-in-college student and over age 35, Arriola is a single mother of three now-grown children, and raising a 22-month-old grandchild.

“Being here I am among really great leaders, especially women who have at least been through whatever hardships, like me, and they made it,” she said.  “They are such inspiration for me to continue my education and strive for more – I can achieve what I desire.”

She said she wants to complete the necessary education to educate both women and men to be nurses.  “I want to teach empathy and compassion, so they will really care and advocate for patients.  Sometimes patients have only the nurses who care.  I work with home-care pediatric special needs children who have no voice and only mommy, maybe a nurse to listen.”

Hearing Arriola talk about her dreams and aspirations, Aguilar smiled proudly, saying, “This is why we as educators do what we do.”

Following the panel discussion, students visited with session leaders and browsed the “best practices” poster displays.  After lunch, they toured the Exhibit Hall that provided tools and information to create or enhance environments for professional development and student success.  SAC students also benefited by seeing the project “A Success Strategies Course for Nursing Students” as one of the 36 “best practices” posters exhibited from universities and colleges around the country.  SAC faculty member Christina C. Olson, MSN, RN, was the author.

In addition to the students, a sold-out conference crowd of over 1,900 nurse educators attended the 2008 NLN Education Summit held September 17-20 at the San Antonio Marriott RiverCenter.  Titled The Power of Diversity in Nursing Education, NLN news materials indicated that the conference helped “to enhance the diversity of the nurse educator workforce and the cadre of pedagogical scholars, and develop environments that embrace diversity.”

Professional development funds from a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources & Services Administration Nursing Workforce Diversity grant awarded to SAC in 2006 covered costs for all 49 faculty members from the Nursing Education Department at San Antonio College to attend the summit.