Discipline/Courses:: Professor, Benjamin Leon School of Nursing. I teach various courses in the RN-BSN Program (Culture in Nursing Practice, Nursing Research, Foundations of Professional Nursing Practice, Community Nursing Practicum and Advanced Leadership Practicum). AIso, I teach Health Assessment in the ADN program.
Campus: Medical
UN SDGs related to your work: Goal 1, no poverty. I inspired my PTK students to partner with the Salvation Army to address the needs of the homeless population in South Florida. This included a homeless seminar organized on campus to educate our students and staff about the needs of the homeless and inspire them to serve. We made several visits as a group to feed the homeless at this facility and organized food pantry and back to school supply drive for the homeless. Goal 12-14 are related to my ongoing efforts to educate my students and colleagues about ways to protect our environment. I organized a campus eco-challenge on campus and inspired my students to help with this initiative. We educated students and staff about the dangers of single use plastic by distributing reusable water bottles on campus. We promoted healthy eating by promoting Meatless Mondays on campus and partnering with a local vegan restaurant that delivered meatless food options on campus. We advocated for reducing, reusing and recycling waste and encouraged exercising and energy conservation.
Essence Words: I am responsible, organized and passionate about helping people in need. I am passionate about protecting our environment which will positively impact our health.
As faculty, what does changemaking mean to you? How do you define what changemaking education is to a faculty peer who has never heard the term?
Changemaking means going above and beyond the status quo to make changes that positively impact the world we live in. Changemaking education is education that inspires others to be changemakers. This type of education promotes an empathetic and creative mindset that is focused on solving real-world problems.
Why do you consider yourself a changemaker faculty? What issues are at the center of your changemaking work?
I am a changemaker faculty because I am always thinking about how can I make the world I live in a better place and I encourage my students to have this same mindset. The fact is that we all are connected in this world. Negative changes in one part of the world will eventually affect us, so we need to do what we can to positively impact our word. Little changes add up. It could be just a call to a state official to advocate for a necessary change or providing health promotion information to someone that needs it.
To be a changemaker, it is important to: solve real-world problems.
What would you tell a faculty peer who would like to consider enhancing their teaching with a changemaking lens?
I would tell them to always include the UN SDGs in your teaching and challenge students to think of solutions that will address these goals.