Wilson College has been awarded a $25,000 grant from the Eden Hall Foundation to fund research on the effects of taking part in the Student Parent Scholar program on the children of program participants. SPS, formerly called the Women with Children program, allows single parents to live on the Wilson campus with their young children while they pursue their degree.
The grant will allow Wilson and an external research partner to conduct interviews with current and former Single Parent Scholar program participants, as well as current and former program directors, to develop an exploratory research study on outcomes for children who lived on the Wilson campus while their parent attended college.
Wilson was invited to apply for the grant by the Eden Hall Foundation, a private Pittsburgh-based foundation that helped launch the Women with Children program in 1996, providing $946,000 in 1997 and 1998 to renovate Prentis Hall as housing for program participants.
In 2015, the program was opened to single fathers and renamed the Single Parent Scholar program. Currently, 13 single parents are enrolled in the SPS program. Over the past 20 years, the program has touched the lives of 120 student-parents and at least that many children, according to the college.
In 2016, Endicott College published a research study that examined eight undergraduate student-parent programs, including Wilson’s, and recommended further research on the effects of such programs on participants’ children. “While the positive impacts on single parents may be more apparent in terms of the increased earnings, independence and stability associated with college degree completion, impacts on children of these single parents are more nebulous,” Wilson’s grant application states. “Positive impacts may be academic, social-emotional, physical and/or behavioral in nature.”
Anecdotally, the effect of living in an academic environment has been positive on the children—with some even returning to Wilson to seek their own degree—but no formal research has been conducted.
Findings of the new research study would be shared with the Eden Hall Foundation, as well as potentially with other stakeholders, including the higher education community. In addition, study results may be used to help identify improvements to the Single Parent Scholar program at Wilson.
The Eden Hall Foundation was established in 1984 in accordance with the will of Pittsburgh philanthropist Sebastian Mueller, who had been vice president and a director of the H.J. Heinz Co. Mueller provided substantial financial support for: improving conditions for the poor and disadvantaged, promoting sound education and benefiting health facilities and projects. Today, foundation trustees continue his stewardship in the areas of social welfare, health, education and the arts.
A new educational partnership between Wilson and New York Chiropractic College will guarantee qualified Wilson graduates who receive a bachelor’s degree in exercise science admission to NYCC’s Doctor of Chiropractic program. Under an articulation agreement between the two schools, exercise science majors who graduate from Wilson with a cumulative 3.0 grade-point average or above are assured admission into the three-year NYCC program. In addition, Wilson graduates with a minimum 3.0 G.P.A. will be automatically awarded a $1,500 merit scholarship by NYCC. “The partnership with NYCC came out of a desire to support Wilson’s goal of enhancing academic opportunities for students and to answer an increased national demand in allied health and complementary medicine,” Tonia Hess-Kling, assistant professor of exercise science, said. “As our program continues to grow and prepare students for work in these fields and for graduate school, this partnership ensures that students who want to study chiropractic can continue their education at a premier school.” Within their first two years of study at Wilson, interested exercise science majors will be asked to submit a letter of intent to NYCC, asking to join its chiropractic doctoral program. Each student who signs a letter of intent will then be assigned their own NYCC admissions counselor for ease of transition from Wilson to NYCC. Under the agreement, students interested in the NYCC program who graduate from Wilson with a G.P.A. of 2.5 or greater will - while not guaranteed admission - receive special consideration for admission to NYCC. Wilson’s bachelor's degree in exercise science is designed to prepare students for careers in the fitness and wellness industries, personal and group fitness training and exercise physiology. It also prepares students for graduate programs in athletic training, exercise physiology, cardiac rehabilitation, physical therapy, chiropractic, occupational therapy and recreational therapy.
Wilson College's international student organization, the Muhibbah Club, will host a spring dinner featuring dishes from around the world on Saturday, March 3, in Jensen Dining Hall in Lenfest Commons. Doors open at 5:15 p.m. and dinner begins at 5:30. It will be followed by entertainment presented by the students at 7:30 p.m. in Laird Hall.
The dinner will feature a variety of international foods, including:
• Entrées — Butter chicken (India), samosa (Pakistan), Scotch egg (Uganda) • Side Dishes — Potato bake (Australia), rice, salad • Desserts — Lamingtons (Australia ), bakewell tarts (England)
After dinner, members of the Muhibbah club will provide entertainment, including traditional dances from Ghana, Australia and Armenia, and more.
The public is invited to attend the dinner and/or the performance. There is no cost to attend the performance, but tickets for the dinner are $10. Reservations are required for the dinner only and must be made by Monday, Feb. 26. To reserve dinner tickets, contact club adviser Crystal Lantz at iss@wilson.edu and provide a phone number, name and number of tickets needed. Payment (cash or check) for tickets will be collected at the door.
The Muhibbah Club will also accept donations at the performance. All donations, as well as a portion of the proceeds from ticket sales, will be given to South Central Community Action Programs (SCCAP).
The word "Muhibbah" means unity among nations. This year's Muhibbah Club president is Brooke McLachlan. Wilson's international students this semester come from more than 15 different countries, including Albania, Ghana, Nepal, Vietnam, Armenia, Australia, South Korea, Pakistan and Uganda.
As the college continues planning for a new veterinary education center first announced in summer 2016, the project has received a boost with gifts from two alumnae totaling $575,000.
Longtime Wilson supporter Susan Breakefield Fulton ’61 has added to her $500,000 lead gift for the veterinary education center, with a second donation of $475,000. A $100,000 bequest has also been received from the late Eleanor Martin Allen ’49, a former Board of Trustees member and chair who died last year.
The cost of the new veterinary center is estimated at approximately $2.5 million, according to Vice President for Finance and Administration Brian Ecker. A committee meeting to confirm the programming needs of the center was expected to complete its work in January and soon thereafter, the design should be finished, Ecker said. “Then after that point, we’ll get estimates on the construction cost and then we may need to go back and revisit some of (the design elements),” he said.
The new veterinary education center will be built on the west side of the Brooks Science Center. Plans call for it to include two surgery rooms, a dental room, recovery room and isolation room, as well as kennels and an indoor run for dogs, a cat room, office, lounge, clinical practice area and laundry facilities, Ecker said.
The college has retained R.S. Mowery & Sons of Mechanicsburg, Pa., as the general contractor for the project and Benedict Dubbs of Murray Associates Architects of Harrisburg, Pa., as the architect—the same team that worked on the John Stewart Memorial Library project.
The new veterinary center will replace the 20-year-old Helen M. Beach ’24 Veterinary Medical Center, which will be razed once the new facility is completed.
The college administration expects to seek Board of Trustees approval of the project design and cost at the board’s May meeting. The timeframe for construction will depend on when funds are in place, according to Ecker.
Anyone who is interested in making a gift to the veterinary center should contact the Office of Institutional Advancement at 717-262-2010 or advancement@wilson.edu
Wilson College President Barbara K. Mistick has been elected to the Executive Committee of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) Board of Directors. The election was held at a meeting of the CIC Board of Directors during its 2018 Presidents Institute in Hollywood, Fla., on Jan. 4. Mistick, who has been a member of CIC’s Board of Directors since January 2016, will serve as the executive committee’s vice chair of investment. That two-year term will run until January 2020. CIC is the only national higher education association that focuses solely on providing services and a broad range of initiatives directly to independent colleges and universities to help improve the quality of education and strengthen institutional resources. “The Council is pleased to have Wilson’s President Mistick as a member of the Board’s Executive Committee,” said CIC President Richard Ekman. “CIC continues to implement many new programs, projects and services, and needs a strong executive committee to oversee their planning and execution. I am certain that President Mistick will bring insight and valuable experience to the leadership of the Council, and I look forward to working with her."
While on a sabbatical from teaching at Wilson College, Associate Professor of Fine Arts R.K. Dickson traveled nearly 10,000 miles over seven months, shooting more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs. An exhibition of some of those large-format landscape photos entitled Rock. Water. Air. will open Wednesday, Jan. 31, in Wilson’s two art galleries: the Bogigian Gallery in Lortz Hall and the John Stewart Memorial Library’s Sue Davison Cooley Gallery.
Opening receptions will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. that evening in both venues. The receptions and exhibitions are free and open to the public.
Dickson, who lives in Chambersburg, has worked at Wilson since 2003, teaching photography and art history. On his recently completed sabbatical, he took photographs in 16 different states. “These photographs are the result of attention to, and an acknowledgement of, interconnectedness in my surroundings,” Dickson said. “They are landscapes, generously interpreted to include details, man-made objects and scenes in what is sometimes called the West Coast rocks and roots tradition of black-and-white, film-based photography.”
Although he traveled extensively while working on his sabbatical project, Dickson said his approach “does not require travel, but I find that shifting my setting interrupts habitual thinking and prompts fresh recognition of how objects and form relate to one another.”
Originally from Silver Spring, Md., Dickson worked as a geologist and in environmental science in Denver for 25 years before changing course. He studied printmaking with E.C. Cunningham for six years at Metropolitan State College and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking from Wichita State University in 2002. In photography, Dickson is largely self-taught, but has participated in workshops with Ansel Adams, John Sexton and Paul Caponigro. He pursues a high-formalist style of traditional black-and-white, film-based photography to explore the nature of creativity and the construction of meaning.
Rock. Water. Air. will continue in the Bogigian Gallery through March 10 and in the Cooley Gallery through June 4. The Bogigian Gallery is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday or by appointment. The Cooley Gallery is open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday; and 1 to 11 p.m. Sunday.
The Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundation recently awarded Wilson College a $460,000 grant to fund scholarships for students with financial need through the Stabler Scholarship Endowment.
The endowment has provided scholarships for 230 Wilson students since the program began in 2008. Students are selected for scholarships based on financial need, academic achievement and service to the community.
Students who receive Stabler Scholarships sign a “debt of conscience” indicating that when they are able, they will make contributions to the endowment in an amount at least equal to what they received. While not a formal legal agreement, the promise serves as a commitment to future philanthropy after graduation.
"Gifts of endowed scholarship are tremendously valuable in allowing good students with financial need to complete their education," Wilson President Barbara K. Mistick said. “We are grateful for this gift from The Stabler Foundation because it will allow us to help students and families who need assistance. We are thankful for its generous support.”
Since 1985, The Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundation has provided Wilson with nearly $4.8 million in funding for a number of programs, including the Stabler Scholarship Endowment; Curran Scholars program, which promotes student volunteerism; and daycare support for students in Wilson’s Single Parent Scholars program.
Located in Harrisburg, the Foundation was established by the Stablers in 1966 exclusively for charitable, religious, scientific, literary or educational purposes. It awards grants to educational institutions, parochial or church-related schools, nonprofit hospitals and medical facilities, while also supporting religious institutions and social service organizations that seek to preserve and instill traditional moral and ethical values, respect for the family, concern for others, self-reliance and a productive life.
Gone are the days when nursing students practiced giving injections by using a syringe on an orange. Now with the help of human facsimiles known as simulators or mannequins, students can have a much more true-to-life experience. And with the most advanced simulators—known as high-fidelity mannequins—the experience can go far beyond performing injections. Students can practice giving IV fluids, checking heart and lung sounds, inserting a catheter into a bladder, even responding to a cardiac arrest or helping deliver a baby.
Wilson College celebrated the arrival of its first high-fidelity mannequin—purchased with a $110,000 gift from Summit Health today in the college’s state-of-the-art simulation center located in the nursing skills lab, also known as the nursing resource center. Summit and Wilson officials, nursing students and invited guests including State Rep. Rob Kauffman (R-90), gathered in the lab for a demonstration of the high-tech mannequin known as Lucina.
“She’s the closest thing to a real person,” said Carolyn Hart, director of Wilson’s nursing program. “When she’s lying in that bed, she’s actually breathing. She’s actually blinking. You can check a blood pressure. She has a heart rhythm that will show up on the monitor. She’s got heart sounds, lung sounds, belly sounds. You can start an IV and have IV fluids flowing into her. You can put a catheter into her bladder and drain urine.”
But Lucina’s capabilities don’t end there. She “talks”—with the help of a person in a control room. She can vomit and have seizures. Her pupils work. She can actually give birth. And today, college nursing staff used Lucina to demonstrate a life-threatening cardiac event. The patient survived.
Students in Wilson’s accredited nursing program will use Lucina, as well as the college’s 10 medium-fidelity mannequins—which have many of the same capabilities of Lucina but are not as advanced—and five low-fidelity mannequins to practice their skills in predetermined scenarios designed to allow them to safely perform procedures and interact with a lifelike simulator before working with human patients.
“Having simulation really allows students to practice in a safe environment,” said Hart, a nursing educator who is also a registered nurse. “You can make a mistake with a mannequin and it’s OK. Your mannequin can die—that’s OK. We learn best from our mistakes, so simulation gives us a time for students to make mistakes and learn from them. Simulation really allows students to practice everything before they go out and work in the clinical setting with real people."
Kauffman, Hart and Wilson President Barbara K. Mistick made remarks at today’s gathering, focusing on the value of Wilson’s nursing program and its partnership with Summit to the community. “It’s great to see nurses being educated right here in our community to serve the people of this community,” said Kauffman.
“Our goal is to change the shape of nursing in Franklin County with the help of Summit Health,” Hart said of Wilson’s young nursing program, which began in fall 2014 and is the college’s fastest-growing program. This fall, 187 students are enrolled across five degree options, including bachelor and master of science degrees in nursing (BSN and MSN), an RN-to-BSN, RN-to-MSN and its newest program, LPN-to-BSN for Licensed Practical Nurses who want to take their education to the next level. The program is distinctive in that it focuses on teaching students not only practical skills, but also how to effectively manage the emotional and educational needs of patients and their families.
Wilson’s young nursing program, which began in fall 2014, is the college’s fastest-growing program, with 187 students enrolled across five degree options, including bachelor and master of science degrees in nursing (BSN and MSN), an RN-to-BSN, RN-to-MSN and its newest program, LPN-to-BSN for Licensed Practical Nurses who want to take their education to the next level. The program is distinctive in that it focuses on teaching students not only practical skills, but also how to effectively manage the emotional and educational needs of patients and their families.
Wilson’s nursing program works closely with a number of community partners, including Summit Health, Keystone Health and Menno Haven Retirement Communities, which allow Wilson students to work with their patients or residents to practice clinical skills. At Chambersburg Hospital, an affiliate of Summit Health, Wilson nursing students work alongside nurses during a shift, functioning in the role of a professional registered nurse.
Summit and Wilson work so closely that in the case of Summit Health’s $110,000 contribution allowing Wilson to buy Lucina, it was Summit that started the conversation. “They actually came to us and asked what they could do to help support nursing program,” said Hart, who estimates that about 80 percent of the students in Wilson’s MSN program work for Summit Health.
“I don’t think there’s any way I could fully express my gratitude,” Hart said. “This was a huge investment on their part and I think it does show confidence in our program. It’s a very wide-reaching gift.”
Hart meets monthly with Summit Health Senior Vice President of Hospital Services Sherri Stahl and discusses clinical needs in nursing education to make sure Wilson’s program is meeting the expectations of employers.
“We highly value our relationship with Wilson College and have the highest regard for the quality education they provide nursing students,” Stahl said. “This donation is an investment in the future of nursing in our community and we are proud to be a part of this opportunity to support the future health and well-being of the people of Franklin County.”
Lucina, purchased from and installed by CAE Healthcare, and all of the mannequins are wirelessly connected to a computer system. A control room and cameras in the nursing resource center allow students’ interaction with the mannequins to be monitored and feedback to be given in real time, as if the mannequins were human beings.
By far the most advanced, Lucina has three different abdomens that can be used: a normal abdomen, a pregnant abdomen and an abdomen of a woman who has recently given birth. “We bought a birthing bed and we have a baby warmer so when the baby’s delivered, the students can actually take the baby over to the warmer—just like you would do in real life,” Hart said.
Lucina resides on the first floor of the college nursing resource center, along with five medium-fidelity mannequins—a combination of male and female “patients,” all with cardiac monitors—which make up a fully functioning intensive care unit. “It will feel like walking into an actual intensive care unit,” Hart said. Upstairs, five other medium-fidelity mannequins make up a five-bed subacute care unit, where students can practice bedside rounds.
Using the cutting-edge simulators gives nursing students an edge that students of the past did not have, according to Hart. “Nursing is a very complicated and intense profession because we not only need excellent skills in the science of nursing, we also need excellent skills in the art of nursing,” said Hart. “It’s not enough to know what to do. You have to know how to work with a patient and a family.”
Hart hopes to bring students from other Wilson programs, such as those studying Spanish, to the simulation lab, where they can play the role of a Spanish-speaking patient or family. Those sorts of real-life scenarios can prove invaluable for students, who can be videotaped and later watch themselves and how they handled a variety of situations.
“Being a liberal arts college helps,” Hart said. “We could bring students that are taking a clinical psych course down and roll out a scenario that involves them. I can probably involve any of our humanities and liberal arts people. Certainly any ethics class could come down and be involved in a scenario. There are just a lot of possibilities for interdisciplinary education with simulation.”
Wilson College recently added a new master’s degree to its expanding offerings in education graduate programs: a Master of Mass Customized Learning. The MMCL program prepares educators to create a student-centered learning environment by enabling them to tailor their teaching methods to the individual learning style of each student.
The philosophy behind mass customized learning, which has been widely promoted by educator-authors Charles Schwahn and Beatrice McGarvey, is rapidly gaining in popularity, according to Eric Michael, Wilson’s director of graduate education programs. He said more school districts are embracing the technique, which has been made possible by advances in technology.
“This is shifting the whole mindset of traditional education,” said Michael, former superintendent of curriculum for the Chambersburg Area School District. “There are districts throughout the country that are moving toward this. It is gaining steam—we see a lot of growth potential.”
What is mass customized learning? First, it represents a shift away from the traditional “mass production” model of education that many of us are familiar with. The MCL vision is learner-centered, where teachers empower and put into place the conditions in which student (or learner) choice is central to the learning experience, according to a review of Schwahn and McGarvey’s book Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning in an Age of Empowerment.
MCL could mean allowing some students to move on if they’ve mastered a concept, while others keep working. It could mean offering students different options in the ways they want to learn, or giving them free reign to choose their own topics of study.
“We know we all have different ways of learning. Some might learn best visually, some by listening to lectures and some learn best by doing,” Michael said. “MCL gives the teacher more tools to be able to deliver in the classroom.”
In much the same way that people have the ability to customize services or products to meet their needs, MCL takes a similar approach in the education of children. Although technology provides important ways to leverage the digital age to meet the needs of each learner, the effective use of MCL requires a complete transformation of the current industrial-age model of education, according to Schwahn and McGarvey, both former teachers and school administrators who have authored two books on the MCL concept.
Several regional consortiums have been formed to examine the concept and potential benefits of MCL, including the Pennsylvania Leadership Development Center and the Mass Customized Learning Mid-Atlantic Consortium. And in Pennsylvania, several school districts have taken the lead in adopting the MCL philosophy. Central York School District’s efforts are described in this York Daily Record story from 2016.
Wilson’s MCL master’s degree, which began in fall 2017, is targeted toward classroom teachers. It’s offered in an online format, but “we would work with school districts with cohorts of teachers” to provide alternates such as onsite course teaching, according to Michael. He said courses can be scheduled at the student’s convenience and the degree can be completed in 18, 24 or 36 months.
For more information about Wilson’s Master of Mass Customized Learning, contact Michael’s office at 717-262-2045 or med@wilson.edu, or visit https://www.wilson.edu/master-mass-customized-learning.
In January, approximately 11 Wilson College students, accompanied by several faculty members, will travel to the Dominican Republic to take part in the College’s first medical mission trip.
During the eight-day trip sponsored by a nonprofit Christian organization called Mission: Hope, Wilson nursing, Spanish and health science students will assist local Dominican healthcare workers at a hospital and a migrant work camp. “Medical missions are often life-transforming,” said Wilson Director of Nursing Carolyn Hart. “We want those who participate to come away with an understanding of what it’s like not to have. There are a whole host of things that we take for granted—including clean water, healthy food and access to health care—that others do not have.” The Wilson group will be centered in La Romana, a city of about 250,000 on the island’s eastern side. Students will work at the city’s hospital, La Buen Samaritano, and at a field clinic for Haitian migrants. Hart will accompany the students on the trip, along with Wilson Associate Professor of Spanish Wendell Smith; Tim Hart, nursing department simulation coordinator; and Summit Health Senior Vice President of Hospital Services Sherri Stahl. With Wilson’s recent emphasis on nursing and healthcare, organizers say they hope the medical mission trip will become a yearly event. Organizers are planning a fundraiser for the trip and potential future missions. The “Hustle for Health” running event will be held on campus on April 28, 2018.
