Developing New Academic Programs

Northeastern's sights are set on offering a Nursing program in Fall 2024.

Across the U.S. nurses are in short supply. The U.S. Department of Labor Statistics projets that more than 275,000 new nurses will be needed by 2030. To help fill this need, Northeastern is developing a Master of Science in Nursing program.

At the helm of this new program is Concetta (Connie Zak), who came to Northeastern in August 2022. She and a task force of faculty and administrators are shaping a curriculum with the hopes of enrolling a cohort of 50 nursing students in the program's first year.

Zak was born in Sicily, raised in Venezuela and arrived in the U.S. with her family when she was 15 years old. She is fluent in Italian, Spanish and English. Two seminal events influenced her decision to become a nurse. As a child, she became seriously ill and was under the care of a female pediatrician. Her early exposure to the healthcare system as a patient receiving treatment and taking medications made an indelible impression. Then, as a teenager in the U.S., she helped her pregnant mother navigate prenatal care.

“When we arrived at the office, the physician would not see my mother,” Zak said. “They sent us to the free clinic just because we didn’t speak English. I wanted to be a primary care provider that gave healthcare to people regardless of their socioeconomic background and language.”

In her profession, Zak has been able to do just that. When she meets with non-English speaking patients, she’s able to put them at ease.

“I could see their whole demeanor change,” said Zak, recalling interactions with Spanish speaking patients. “I would walk into the room and see their panic, worried I couldn’t talk to them. Then I would start speaking Spanish and I could see how comfortable they became just by the fact that I understood them and their culture.”

After starting her career working directly with patients, she pivoted and earned a master of business administration degree to work in nursing administration. She then earned her doctorate in nursing practice from Rush University. Zak has also been a nursing instructor and has worked on the corporate end of healthcare, designing health plans for disabled Medicaid recipients. These different but related realms have given Zak a broader vision of how healthcare can effectively treat and support various patient populations. Ultimately, she is passionate about educating nurses so they can return to their communities to provide primary care for patients, which is what this new program aims to do.

“The degree program will cover all the nursing essentials: basic medical, surgical, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatric, mental health and community health,” Zak said. “We will have a course in social determinants of health because that’s so important for nurses to understand—what factors stop patients from receiving care.”

Zak said students will also learn pharmacology and the fundamentals of nursing, among other topics. The program will be designed for non-nurses with at least a bachelor's degree in another field. After completing the program, students will be eligible to sit for the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses to receive their registered nursing license.

Zak said the program would work with a number of healthcare providers for students’ clinical training, including local hospitals and other healthcare providers, acute care and community service providers, public health, mental health, pediatrics, women's health, hospice care and home healthcare agencies.

Zak believes Northeastern is ideally positioned to educate and train nurses, because the University serves a diverse population that tends to have the desire to give back to their communities. Though the program is currently designed to have two tracks—Mental Health and Geriatrics—Zak hopes to establish a track in the program to allow graduates to train new students, allowing one generation of nurses to support the next.

“Our nurses need to mirror the community that they serve,” Zak said. “The U.S. needs to recruit and retain a diverse group of nurses right now. With this program, Northeastern will be filling a critical gap in healthcare.”