“According to
my research, diversity in the U.S. has grown to 24% of the population, but nationally,
the nursing profession hasn’t kept pace,” said Connie Frisch, PTCC’s dean of
nursing and health sciences. “Only 17% of nursing professionals reflect a diverse
population. This grant will allow us to support our foreign-born students in
order to grow diversity within the nursing profession statewide.”
PTCC was one
of two rural Minnesota colleges to earn the grant awarded by Minnesota State
Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) Education Industry Partnerships. The intent
of the grant was to support the success of foreign-born nursing students. PTCC
will use the grant to provide cultural competence workshops for nursing
faculty. The workshops will help faculty identify European American cultural
influences in the nursing profession, as well as develop cultural competence in
the classroom. Additionally, the grant will help identify students’ language
ability skills and support systems and provide opportunities to offer formal
diverse study groups to all nursing students.
“Because of
our commitment to diversity and student success, we’re very proud to receive
this grant. It will have a possible impact on all of our nursing faculty and
students,” Frisch said. “Eventually, we hope to extend these workshops and
practices to other programs. The grant will have a positive impact on our
entire campus.”
The Education Industry Partnership grant honors the late Kathleen McCullough-Zander, a former nursing faculty at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Her husband, David Zander, in memory of his wife, worked with legislators in 2015 to provide an appropriation of $35,000 to support programming for foreign-born students. The legislature specified Century College and Minneapolis Community and Technical College as recipients in the Metro area for the funding, with two additional grants awarded to rural colleges – Pine Technical & Community College and Hibbing Community College.
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