News from the Connell School

National Institute of Nursing Research Grant

The National Institute of Nursing Research awarded Assistant Professors Britt Pados and Jinhee Park and their team (based at the University of North Carolina) a five-year R01 research project grant for their study, Symptom Trajectories in Infants and Toddlers at Risk for Chronic Feeding Problems.

AAN Fellows

The American Academy of Nursing (AAN) selected three outstanding Connell School nurse leaders as fellows of the academy this fall. Clinical Associate Professor Susan DeSanto-Madeya, Associate Professor Holly Fontenot, and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs Susan Kelly-Weeder were inducted in October at AAN’s annual conference in Washington, DC. Read more

New CSON Endowed Chair

Mei R. Fu (pictured), a widely respected nurse scientist whose research is focused on cancer-related symptoms and management of chronic illnesses, is the inaugural recipient of the Connell School’s Barry Family/Goldman Sachs Endowed Chair in Nursing. A gift from Boston College Trustee Steven M. Barry ’85 and Tammy J. Barry ’85, M.Ed. ’87, P ’14, ’17, established the position. Read more

American Cancer Society Grant

The American Cancer Society awarded a four-year Research Scholar Grant to Associate Professor Karen Lyons and her team at Oregon State University, who are studying dyadic intervention for young couples living with cancer to find ways to reduce distress about reproduction and improve their health and quality of life.

Promotions

Connell School faculty Stacey Barone, Stewart Bond, and Julie Dunne were recently promoted. Barone is now a clinical professor, Bond a clinical associate professor, and Dunne a clinical assistant professor.

Public Health Nursing

Associate Professor Joyce Edmonds was elected chair of the American Public Health Association’s Public Health Nursing Section.

The Hillman Innovations in Care Program is supporting Optimizing Nursing Practice to Improve Childbirth Outcomes: An Audit and Feedback Intervention, a study by Edmonds and Neel Shah, director of Ariadne Labs’ Delivery Decisions Initiative. Their goal is to increase nurses’ understanding of the effects of different practices on childbirth outcomes.

Pinnacle Keynote Speakership Named

CSON received a generous donation from MedStar Health in honor of Maureen P. McCausland ’72, M.S. ’77 (pictured). The gift recognizes McCausland’s leadership at MedStar, the largest health care provider in Maryland and Washington, DC, where she served as senior vice president and chief nursing officer. The Pinnacle lectures’ keynote speaker is now named the Dr. Maureen P. McCausland Pinnacle Keynote Speaker. McCausland is now a senior advisor at McChrystal Group, an advisory services and leadership development firm. Read more

Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Certificate

Boston College last fall introduced an Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Certificate program for graduate students in the schools of nursing, social work, and theology and ministry. The 12-credit course of study—one of the first of its kind in the US—is designed to provide nurses, social workers, and ministers with the skills and knowledge to care for patients and families living with serious illnesses. CSON Clinical Associate Professor Susan DeSanto-Madeya directs the program’s advisory board and leads its implementation on campus. Read more

Exploratory Technology Grant

Boston College’s Academic Technology Advisory Board, which supports innovative projects across the disciplines, awarded an exploratory technology grant to CSON Associate Professor Corrine Jurgens (pictured) and Andrew Hession-Kunz, a senior lecturer at the Carroll School of Management, to undertake a cross-disciplinary study of heart-rate variability.

BC Education Policy Committee

Associate Professor Cathy Read served as CSON’s representative on BC’s Education Policy Committee, which conducted a University-wide review and approved a new Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Certificate and a minor in Global Public Health and the Common Good.

Beth Israel Lahey Board of Trustees

Clinical Associate Professor Patricia Reid Ponte was named to the Beth Israel Lahey Health System Board of Trustees for a three-year term.

BC Ignite Grant

Assistant Professor Britt Pados was awarded a Boston College Ignite grant for her pilot study, the Implementation of Standardized Assessment of Feeding in the High-Risk Neonatal Follow-Up Clinic.

Pinnacle lecture

Pioneering Italian nurse leaders Alessandro Stievano and Gennaro Rocco presented the October Pinnacle lecture: How International Collaboration Is Advancing Nursing Research, Practice, and Education.

Rocco is the steering committee director at the Scientific Research Center of Centro di Eccellenza per la Cultura e la Ricerca Infermieristica. Stievano is a research fellow in nursing at the Centre of Excellence for Nursing Scholarship OPI.

Global Public Health and the Common Good

BC launched a new interdisciplinary minor in Global Public Health and the Common Good in fall 2019. Faculty from the Connell School, Law School, Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Social Work teach courses in the minor program, which is grounded in epidemiology and emphasizes the moral, ethical, and legal foundations of public health. Read more

New Nurse Anesthesia Partner

Last summer, the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs approved the Associated Physicians of Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as the Connell School’s nurse anesthesia program partner. Previously, Anaesthesia Associates of Massachusetts had shared authority for CSON’s program.

Seacole Scholars Program

In September, CSON inaugurated a Seacole Scholars Program, an intentional living and learning community comprised of first-year female nursing students of color. The program seeks to learn if—by living, studying, and collaborating together—this community will increase a sense of belonging for minority students.The program was named for Mary Jane Seacole (pictured), a nineteenth-century Jamaicanborn nurse and businesswoman whose contributions to nursing were overlooked for many years due to racial bias.

Photograph courtesy National Geographic

Alumna Named CEO

Kimberly Arouth ’84 was named chief executive officer of Visiting Nurse & Community Care, Inc., a leading nonprofit home care agency in eastern Massachusetts.

In Memory

Molly Ryan, M.S. ’19, died at home on July 30. Donations in Molly’s memory can be made to Hope Floats at hopefloatswellness.org.

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