The TC Nursing Student Experience
Diane Reynolds, MS, RN, OCN, CNE received her undergraduate nursing education from Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing. Her first position after graduation in 1977 was on a thoracic surgery unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. After a 16 year delay due to personal and family responsibilities, Diane returned to school and earned an MSN graduating Magna Cum Laude from SUNY-Health science Center at Brooklyn in 1994.
Diane credits Rosalie Rothenberg (EdD ’80) with fostering her love for academia. Dr. Rothenberg was the acting Dean of the School of Nursing at SUNY-Downstate, when Diane applied for a part-time lab instructor position. Dr. Rothenberg suggested that Diane come on board as a full time faculty member instead. She recalls that her very first assignment was teaching pathophysiology to sixty undergraduate nursing students and she loved it! Unfortunately, budget cuts forced the closure of the program. Subsequently, Diane took a position at Long Island College Hospital, where she worked for 5 years. Diane is currently employed as an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Long Island University where she teaches undergraduate nursing students in the mentorship program.
Having taught nursing students since 1994 with no formal education classes, Diane chose the TC doctoral program in nursing education. She was attracted to the curriculum which offered a well-rounded interdisciplinary course of study, focused on education coupled with a strong foundation in research. Having passed the competency exam last June, Diane is concentrating on a research project related to oncology and the need to close the health disparities gap surrounding this topic. To that end, her dissertation research will concentrate on parental acceptance of the Human Papillomavirus in 9-12 year old girls. Through an NIH Point-of-Care Technologies Research Network (U54) grant, Diane is currently working on a project examining breast density as a marker for breast cancer in Afro-American/Afro/Caribbean women.
After completing the doctorate, Diane is planning a post-doc fellowship to explore the issues related to under utilization of hospice services. When she is not studying or on the computer, Diane likes to shop (for anything), cook, and attend the theater. Diane wishes to thank her mentor, Cynthia Davis Sculco (EdD ’74; MEd ’71), for her personal and financial support.
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The TC Nursing Student Experience
Launette Woolforde, MS, RN, BC, always knew that she wanted to be a nurse, and for as long as she can remember, she knew that she wanted to be a pediatric nurse. So immediately after high school, Launette entered Pace University Lienhard School of Nursing to pursue a nursing degree. After the pediatric rotation, Launette realized that she was not cut out to work with sick children—and at times even wondered if nursing was for her. Nevertheless, she completed a BSN and began working with adult patients.
After many years of working with adult patients and mentoring nursing students on her unit, Launette began to realize how much personal and professional satisfaction she gained from teaching nursing students. After completing an MSN at Hunter College as an Adult Health Clinical Nurse Specialist, her career took a new path when she accepted a position as a nursing instructor.
Working as an educator inspired Launette to further her education and complete a post-masters certificate in nursing education at the College of New Rochelle (CNR). It was at CNR where she met her mentor, Dr. Connie Vance, who inspired her to advance the profession in new and dynamic directions through mentorship. Dr. Vance continues to inspire Launette to mentor others in nursing.
One day in class at CNR, Launette recalled that Dr Vance spoke of the importance of furthering our education and engaging in doctoral study. Although she needed to focus on the program she was in at CNR, Launette decided to explore doctoral programs. An advertisement about an open house at TC caught her attention. “I had always dreamed of attending Teachers College because of its world renowned status and unmatched nursing history,” she recalled. “I spoke with Dr Vance about it and she encouraged me to pursue a doctorate in education at her alma mater.”
Four years later Launette is entering her third year at TC in the Nursing Education program. “Sometimes I stroll through the hallways in awe of where I stand,” she reflected, “in the same halls and classrooms that were graced by some of the greatest scholars in nursing. I am looking forward to completing my coursework this semester and starting my dissertation classes and taking the certification exam in the spring.” Launette’s research interest is to understand why African Americans are underrepresented in health related research studies and the impact this has on their health.
Launette currently holds the position of orientation coordinator and clinical affiliations coordinator for the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, North Shore University Hospital. In this capacity she gets to work on two educational frontiers that she loves: working with nursing students and with new nurses (and experienced ones too). “For me,” she reflected, “nursing has been full of opportunities and professional development. Once I finish my degree I intend to work on the development of programs and strategies aimed at bridging racial and socioeconomic health disparities on Long Island and the surrounding areas.”
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The TC Nursing Student Experience
Carol A. Fetters Andersen, MSN, RN
Nurse Executive Program Cohort
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Carol Fetters Andersen, MSN, RN, enrolled at TC in the fall of 2005, and is one of nine doctoral candidates in the Nurse Executive Program cohort. Carol’s goal is to complete the EdD in 2009. Her dissertation interests relate to the exploration of facilitators and barriers to leadership development experiences by underrepresented minority faculty in nursing education. Carol is the Director of Product Development for the National League for Nursing in New York.
“I am so thrilled to be completing the doctoral program in nursing at Teachers College and beginning my involvement with the NEAA. TC is a wonderful and empowering place to learn, with exceptional faculty from a variety of roles and academic disciplines. My eight classmates are exceptional nurse leaders in their own areas of nursing education, practice, and organizational leadership. I feel privileged to study and learn with them, as we challenge each other to succeed and thrive. We have a collective and individual commitment to leave nursing better than we found it. This commitment carries on the work begun by M. Adelaide Nutting when she became the first nurse in the world to attain the position of professor of nursing in 1907, and assumed a leadership role as director of the new nursing program at TC. I am awed by the ongoing work and leadership provided by TC alumni since those early days of TC. Thank you for your efforts to make the nine of us feel welcome and already a part of NEAA! I hope to see and meet many of you at the 2007 Stewart Conference.”
Ms. Carol Fetters Andersen has held numerous organizational leadership roles in nursing over the past 18 years. In 1988, while in her undergraduate nursing program at Grand View College in Des Moines, IA, she assumed the role of membership director for the Iowa Association of Nursing Students. She later served in 1990 as state president and went on to be elected national president of the National Student Nurses’ Association 1991-1992. In her junior academic year, Fetters Andersen was also awarded recognition as a National VA Scholar in nursing, inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International Zeta Chi chapter in 1991, and featured in Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges in 1991-1992.
After graduation from Grand View College with her BSN in the spring of 1992, she continued her passion for nursing as a mental health nurse at the Central Iowa VA Healthcare System in Knoxville, IA, serving as co-chair of the Knoxville VA Nursing Research Committee, and began her MSN program at the University of Iowa which she completed in 1998. Fetters Andersen continued to develop as a nurse manager and leader in professional nursing organizations serving as an RN Case Manager, the Clinical Coordinator of a Geriatric Behavioral Health Unit, as a Director of Mental Health Services and on the Board of Directors of the Iowa Nurses’ Association, and later as First Vice President of the Maryland Nurses’ Association.
Her book, “Nursing Student to Nursing Leader: The critical path to leadership development in nursing” published by Delmar Thomson Learning (1999; second edition under revision), is being used by nursing schools in the US and abroad and is the required text for NSNA’s Leadership University In 2001, Fetters Andersen was awarded the Edith Ruppert Award for contributions significant to the improvement of nursing by the Iowa Nurses’ Association. After moving to Maryland in 2002, she served as the Magnet Status Coordinator for the Sheppard Pratt Health System, and then as a nurse faculty member at Harford Community College in Bel Air, MD and the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.
In December 2004, Fetters Andersen accepted a position at the National League for Nursing as their manager for Professional Development, and served in that role which included managing and coordinating the regional workshops, conferences and the 2006 NLN Summit program in New York City. During this time she became a member of ASAE, a graduate student member of the NLN, and continued as a sustaining member of the National Student Nurses Association since 1992. In 2007, Fetters Andersen was promoted to the role of Director of Product Development for the NLN. In this new role, she will facilitate the creation, revision, and implementation of comprehensive NLN assessment products and services that will assist nursing students, nurse faculty leaders, and nurse administrators to evaluate teaching and learning outcomes within changing nursing education and practice environments.
While NSNA President, she served as a contributing author on the ANA Position Statement on HIV and Student Nurses, and was an invited panelist along with the late Mary Starke Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN, at the National Conference on Gerontological Nursing Education in Norfolk, VA. As the NLN representative, Fetters Andersen attended the 2006 National Leadership Summit on Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health, DHHS Office of Minority Health in Washington, DC, from January 9-11, 2006. During the National Leadership Summit’s Commemorative event on January 10, 2006, she was again able to honor and re-connect with Dr. Mary Starke Harper, who received the prestigious Secretary’s Award and was recognized as a visionary leader whose inimitable contributions have advanced minority health and health disparities as a national priority.
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