AKRON, Ohio — The University of Akron College of Nursing made “remarkable strides despite daunting and unprecedented economic challenges” last year, Dean N. Margaret Wineman told colleagues, students and friends during her annual address this afternoon.
“Last year, I called upon this college to move forward in one direction, as a team, to achieve our goals and shape our future without additional human and physical resources,” Dean Wineman said. “You heard me and responded.”
The college had 922 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students last year — a record. This year, the college has 965 students — another record. “Why are students choosing our college of nursing? Some of the primary reasons are our good reputation, affordability, the supportive alumni base, a welcoming campus and great faculty,” Wineman said.
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The college has expanded its reach beyond Mary Gladwin Hall, the building that houses it, by partnering with Lorain County Community College and Medina County University Center to accept transfer credits from these schools, Wineman said. “Despite the economic downturn, we have been able to maintain our enrollments at these facilities and increase resources for developing new programming,” she said.
The partnerships that include revenue sharing of student tuition will expand to two military academies in Missouri and New Mexico this year, she said.
The college also reaches the community with free nursing care. “Our Nursing Center for Community Health, formerly the Center for Nursing, continues to grow,” Wineman said. “We had almost 1,100 patient visits just at the Mary Gladwin Clinic on campus, allowing us to provide essential primary care to the underinsured and vulnerable population right outside the college’s doorstep.”
More faculty and volunteers are needed to meet the primary health care needs of the uninsured, and the college is looking to the Obama administration and its focus on nursing care as a way to control rising costs, she said.
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The college’s focus on community health was recognized last week with the award of a three-year Kellogg Foundation grant of $1.3 million dollars, Wineman said. The grant will be used to bring together different types of health care providers to improve oral health care for poor, low-income pregnant women, mothers and children up to 5 years old at two pilot WIC programs in Northeast Ohio, she said. The college also supports a clinic at Community Support Services, which serves people who have severe or chronic mental illness, she said.
Research and scholarship activities brought in 11 grants last year, reflecting collaborations with institutions like Akron Children’s Hospital, she said. Research projects of note: Elaine Fisher is working with a polymer science professor on a patch made with nanofibers that measures oxygenation of the blood, and Stephanie Woods is continuing a groundbreaking study on the long-term effects of intimate partner violence, Wineman said.
The college also is working to build bridges to future research and scholarship by working with two centers of excellence — the Center for Health Care Training and the Community Outreach to the Medically Underserved — in the emerging Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron, she said.
The college can do what it does partly by using information and simulation technologies. But Mary Gladwin Hall may not be able to keep up with technological and other demands of an emerging generation of students and researchers. Beginning this fall, Wineman will lead an evaluation of the hall on the south side of campus that is expected to result in a recommendation to renovate it or build a new building, Wineman said.
This year, Wineman will ask more from her colleagues and students. “Our abilities as a team will continue to be challenged as the budget shortfall expands, as the need for interprofessional education and partnerships grow, and as health care challenges mount,” she said. “I am confident that, together with our students, we can build those bridges, and that we can succeed.”
