Class Notes

Let your fellow alumni know what’s happening in your professional life. Submitting an update to Class Notes is easy; just visit nursing.umaryland.edu/ classnotes or contact us at alumni.nursing@umaryland.edu or 410-706-0674. You can also send us mail courtesy of Cynthia Sikorski, director of alumni relations, at 655 W. Lombard St., Suite 516A, Baltimore, MD 21201. As we are unable to confirm all alumni credentials, only UMSON degrees and graduation years are included.

1960s

Edna Brown Lebow Stillwell, MS ’72, BSN ’63, was the first editor and is now the emerita editor of the Journal of Gerontological Nursing

Denise Feller, BSN ’69, a Walter Reed Army Institution of Nursing graduate and retired lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, was a guest speaker in March 2022 at the annual Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day in Helena, Montana.

1970s

Linda Flynn, BSN ’75, dean and professor at Rutgers School of Nursing in New Jersey, was honored as a Nurse Educator of the Year for 2022 by the National League for Nursing.

Patricia McMullen, MS ’81, BSN ’75, stepped down as dean of the Catholic University of America Conway School of Nursing in Washington, D.C., in October 2021 after more than 12 years.

Margaret “Peggy” Wilmoth, MS ’79, BSN ’75, professor at the University of North Carolina School of Nursing and an UMSON Visionary Pioneer, was selected as a member of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine in December.

Adelaide “Addie” Eckardt, MS ’81, BSN ’78, former Maryland state senator, was interviewed by the Dorchester Star for an article published in April 2022 about last year’s election and the issues and priorities she considers most important.

Joan Stanley, MS ’78, an UMSON Visionary Pioneer, joined with colleagues to address the “Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Future of Nursing Education” in an article published in the March 2022 issue of Academic Medicine. She was also quoted in a January 2023 Johnson & Johnson Nursing News Highlights article, “Ahead of the Curve: Nursing Leadership and Well-Being Education in the Classroom,” about a two-year initiative to create a curriculum focused on developing essential skills in resilience.

Patricia Gonce Morton, PhD ’89, MS ’79, an UMSON Visionary Pioneer, and John Nerges, MS ’02, co-authored the article “Male Nurses’ Perceptions of the Facilitators and Barriers to Recruitment, Retention, and Job Satisfaction” published in the February 2022 issue of Nurse Leader.

Carol Snapp, BSN ’79, was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Nurse-Midwives at the organization’s 67th annual meeting and exhibition in May 2022.

1980s

Betsy Chang Ha, BSN ’80, published a memoir, The Paper Tiger’s Daughters, in January 2022 about Asian American and Pacific Islander immigrants in the United States that connects U.S. policies and the civil rights movement that influenced her parents’ decisions and choices as early immigrants that unintentionally caused great harm to future generations. The book offers a resource of traumainformed practices to help buffer the harm of adverse childhood experiences.

CARING FOR ALL Oluwatosin “Tosin”

Olateju, MS ’15, BSN ’11, is the founder and executive director of Food and Care for All Inc., a nonprofit organization in Ellicott City, Maryland, that caters to the needs of underserved communities. The organization offers a walk-in food pantry, clothing closet, and sexual health clinic. Olateju works with a diverse team to conduct needs assessments on focused communities, advocate for equitable policies, mobilize community partnerships, and build capacity for staff through training. She also mentors nursing students and assists them with integrating public health theory into their assigned practice settings. Olateju received a certificate of recognition from Howard County (Maryland) Executive Calvin Ball on the occasion of the grand opening of the organization’s facility in April 2022.

Lori Edwards, BSN ’80, UMSON assistant professor and associate dean for the Master of Science in Nursing program, and Sarah Szanton, MS ’95, dean and Patricia M. Davidson Professor for Health Equity and Social Justice at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, were quoted in the January/February 2023 issue of INSIGHT into Diversity in an article about how nursing schools are teaching advocacy skills to help advance health equity.

Marian Currens, BSN ’81, director of the University of Maryland Center for Addiction Medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) Midtown Campus, is quoted in an April 2022 Baltimore Sun story, “Drug Treatment: There’s an app for that too, and University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown has been testing it with positive results.”

Lisa Rowen, MS ’86, senior vice president and chief nurse executive at the University of Maryland Medical

System (UMMS) and an UMSON Visionary Pioneer, was named a 2023 Fellow of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. Rowen has also been appointed to the board of directors of the University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health (UMUCH) in Bel Air. She also joined Elizabeth Cushing, BSN ’14, a trauma nurse at UMMC, as part of a panel discussion on WYPR, Baltimore’s NPR affiliate, in September to discuss the impact of an immersive education program on staffing at UMMS hospitals.

Mary Bolt, MS ’90, BSN ’88, president of Cecil College in Bay View, Maryland, was named by The (Maryland) Daily Record as one of the 2022 Maryland’s Top 100 Women.

Helen Hash, BSN ’88, received the Society of Hospital Medicine Maryland Chapter’s Hospital Medicine Affiliate of the Year award.

Dawn Mueller-Burke, PhD ’01, MS ’88, UMSON assistant professor, shared her perspectives about the effect of the pandemic on the nursing profession in a Baltimore Sun story, “Nurses on the front lines look to refill their ‘empty cup,’” published in May 2022.

Carol Ann Sperry, MS ’88, was interviewed by FOX45 News, Baltimore’s FOX affiliate, in September about a mass-casualty drill at Fort Meade and at the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center (UMBWMC).

Joan Insalaco Warren, PhD ’04, MS ’88, received the Maryland Action Coalition’s Exemplary Leadership Award at the organization’s annual leadership summit in May 2022.

1990s

Charonne Jones, BSN ’92, was interviewed for a May 2022 article in Afro News, “Home Care Agencies Call for More Funding to Support Staff,” about her nursing career path and her role as CEO and owner of Aamira, a home care agency.

Cara Krulewitch, PhD ’92, was recognized by Continental Who’s Who as a Pinnacle Lifetime Achiever for her career in epidemiology and midwifery and in acknowledgment of her work as the owner and CEO of CJ Consulting Group.

Mary Beth Flynn Makic, MS ’92, professor of clinical teaching and specialty director of the Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, was featured in a December article for that campus about what she has learned about mass shootings.

Muibat Sanni, BSN ’94, received the Community Impact Award at Baltimore’s Mercy Medical Center’s annual The Sisters of Mercy Nursing Awards ceremony in May 2022.

Susan Bindon, DNP ’11, MS ’96, UMSON associate professor and associate dean for faculty development, was quoted in an article on Nurse.com in December about the need for more nurse educators.

Marla De Jong, MS ’96, was selected as vice chair of the American Academy of Nursing Fellow Selection Committee.

Barbara Resnick, PhD ’96, UMSON professor and Sonya Ziporkin Gershowitz Chair in Gerontology and University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Distinguished Professor, was featured in an article on BlackDoctor.org in August about why stretching is good for your body.

Robin Ford, MS ’97, was quoted in a Kent County Crier story and on the Star Democrat website in May 2022 about being named Nurse of the Year by University of Maryland Shore Regional Health (UMSRH) in Easton.

Bonjo Batoon, BSN ’98, was featured in an article on EMS1.com in October about his experiences on the Maryland Go-Team and the opening of his own online business.

Happenings At Ummc

2022 Nursing Excellence Awards

Congratulations to the alumni whose excellence in their work at UMMC was recognized at the hospital’s annual nursing awards ceremony in May 2022.

CNO Award for Team Excellence

Melissa McBride, MS ’10, BSN ’04

Ashley Hernandez, MS ’16, BSN ’12

Rebecca Meyerson, MS ’20

DAISY Award

Robertlet Pindell-Jones, BSN ’99

Jamie Kirschner, BSN ’05

Jasmina Begollari, BSN ’18

Jasmine Tewell, BSN ’18

Alexandra Huntress-Reeve, BSN ’20

Excellence in Innovation Through Research

Karen McQuillan, MS ’86, BSN ’81

Excellence in Innovation Through Evidence-Based Practice

Sarah Rosenbloom, BSN ’19

Moving On Up

Excellence in Leadership Thanh Cao, MS ’08

Excellence in Leadership-Clinical Susan Williams, MS ’15

Excellence in Quality

Emily Smith, MS ’15

Ashley Waak, BSN ’18

The Art of Caring

Molly Conway, BSN ’18

Personifies Professionalism

Steven Gee, BSN ’01

Contagious Positive Attitude

Agnes Kim, BSN ’17

The Art and Science of Nursing/ Excellence in Precepting, Mentoring, and Education

Kelly Devine, BSN ’18

Special Friend of Nursing/ Infection Prevention Team

Timothy Sparklin, BSN ’17

Congratulations to the following alumni, who have recently received promotions: SENIOR CLINICAL NURSE I

Christopher Steets, MS ’16

Dominique Duval, BSN ’17

Nicole Hauser, BSN ’18

Aubrey Powers, MS ’19

Rebecca Meyerson, MS ’20

Alexia Owusu-Sakyi, BSN ’20

DAISY Awardee

Senior Clinical Nurse Ii

Martina Patricio, BSN ’97

The DAISY Award recognizes nurses who provide extraordinary compassionate care and honors the super-human work nurses do for patients and families every day.

Karyn Comfort, BSN ’21

Three New Deans And A President

Three UMSON alumni took the helm as deans of institutions between July 1 and Aug. 1. Bimbola Akintade, PhD ’11, MS ’05, BSN ’03, former associate professor and associate dean for the Master of Science in Nursing program at UMSON, began his new role as dean of the East Carolina College of Nursing in North Carolina on July 1, and Linda Ghazi Haddad, PhD ’93, did the same at the University of Memphis Loewenberg

George Zangaro, PhD ’05, MS ’98, authored an article, “Completion and Attrition of DNP Students of the 20062015 Matriculating Cohorts,” published by Nursing Outlook in February 2022.

Jennifer Hrabowski, BSN ’99, was recognized by the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Baltimore for her work launching and operating six women’s clinics in the Emory Healthcare system in Atlanta.

Angie Price, BSN ’99, has joined the University of Maryland Shore Medical Group (UMSMG) – Women’s Health in Easton.

2000s

Esther Schaftel, MS ’00, was recognized with the Patient and Family-Centered Care Award at the annual The Art of Caring Awards Ceremony at Greater Baltimore Medical Center in June.

Nancy Glass, PhD ’01, Independence Chair in Nursing Education at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, discussed a new app that can help link victims of domestic violence to resources, information, and personalized safety plans during an episode of the school’s On the Pulse podcast in October, which is recognized as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

College of Nursing in Tennessee. Exactly one month later, on Aug. 1, Seon-Yoon Chung, PhD ’16, took on the role of dean at the University of Wisconsin/Oshkosh College of Nursing. Not bad for a single month’s work!

In addition, a little more than a month later, Sylvia Trent-Adams, MS ’99, an UMSON Visionary Pioneer, was named the seventh president of the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. On Sept. 12, she became the first Black woman to lead a health science center in Texas.

Donna S. Havens, PhD ’01, co-authored an article, “Psychological responses of hospital-based nurses working during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: A cross-sectional study,” published in the February 2022 issue of Applied Nursing Research.

Connie M. Ulrich, PhD ’01, has been selected as a Hastings Center Fellow for the impact her work in bioethics has had on scholarship and public perception of ethical issues affecting health, health care, science, and technology. Ulrich was also quoted in a November 2022 Journal of the American Medical Association article about a study she is leading to determine what influences retention of participants enrolled in cancer clinical trials.

Tamara Kim, DNP ’21, BSN ’02, has joined UMSMG – Pediatrics in Easton.

Bimbola Akintade, PhD ’11, MS ’05, BSN ’03, dean of the East Carolina University College of Nursing, and Shannon Idzik, DNP ’10, MS ’03, UMSON professor and associate dean for the Doctor of Nursing Practice program, were interviewed for an August 2022 article in Scrubs Magazine, “As Demand for Nurses with Master’s Degrees Grows, Will Nursing Salaries Increase?”

Tina Anselmi-Moulaye, MS ’04, was recognized with the Cynthia Arnold Scholarship Award at the annual The Art of Caring Awards Ceremony at Greater Baltimore Medical Center in June.

Ladan Eshkevari, BSN ’04, received the Program Director of the Year Award from the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology during its 2022 Annual Congress in August.

Christine Frost, MS ’04, was appointed vice president of nursing and chief nursing office at Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center in July. She has been selected as president-elect of the Maryland Organization of Nurse Leaders.

Danielle M. Wilson, BSN ’04, has joined UMSRH in Easton as director of patient care services operations.

Brittany Altermatt, MS ’05, has joined the medical oncology team at the May Cancer Center at the University of Texas Health San Antonio as an adult nurse practitioner.

Ronnie Ursin, MS ’07, BSN ’05, was appointed CEO/chief nursing officer of USMD Hospital at Arlington, Texas, in June.

Brigit VanGraafeiland, DNP ’08, MS ’05, was named as one of 50Forward Emerging Leaders by the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners.

Gwynneth Jarrell, BSN ’06, an UMSON Doctor of Nursing Practice AdultGerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner specialty student, presented a poster that received the best quality poster award at the American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses National Conference in April 2022.