NEWS INNOVATING TO BECOME AN AGE-FRIENDLY CAMPUS Dr. Phyllis Greenberg and Dr. Rona Karasik, faculty in the Gerontology program, are leading an Age-Friendly campus initiative with the goal of St. Cloud State becoming one of the campuses in Minnesota to join the Age-Friendly University Global Network, which is a network of 70 higher education institutions around the world that are committed to becoming more age-friendly in programs and policies by endorsing 10 principles of an Age Friendly University. Their work is supported by a $10,000 Small Seed grant from the Minnesota State Educational Innovations spring 2020 funding round. The grants support projects that show great potential for improving teaching, learning and access to students across the Minnesota State system.
EXPANDING DOCTORAL OFFERINGS ST. CLOUD STATE IS EXPANDING ITS DOCTORAL OFFERINGS WITH THE LAUNCH OF ITS THIRD DOCTORATE IN FALL 2021, A DOCTOR OF PSYCHOLOGY (PSYD) IN APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS, AND A COLLABORATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA SCHOOL OF NURSING TO BRING A NEW PATHWAY TO A DOCTOR OF NURSING PRACTICE (DNP) IN THE FAMILY NURSE PRACTITIONER SPECIALTY TO CENTRAL MINNESOTA.
Becoming an Age-Friendly University will have many benefits for traditional age students in that it will encourage more inter-generational activities and better prepare students to work and engage with older adults when they enter the workforce, Greenberg said.
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“Younger people can diminish negative stereotypes they might have about older people and vice versa,” Greenberg said. Becoming age-friendly also aligns with moves made by Gov. Tim Walz to make Minnesota an age-friendly state. Gov. Walz signed the proclamation in December 2019 in recognition of the fact that the number of adults older than 65 living in Minnesota was expected to exceed the number of children younger than 18 in 2020. Lifelong learning is a focus of the It’s Time framework developed by President Robbyn Wacker that recognizes the changing realities of society and universities throughout the country. St. Cloud State is a member of the Academy of Gerontology in Higher Education, which has also adopted the Age-Friendly University principles.
COLLABORATING ON DNP The School of Health and Human Services collaboration with the University of Minnesota School of Nursing will bring a new DNP pathway to Central Minnesota with St. Cloud State Nursing faculty providing support for the St. Cloud Cohort as students do their clinical training at CentraCare Health clinical sites. St. Cloud State Nursing faculty will simultaneously work to create a dedicated DNP curriculum designed to focus on rural family nursing care that will launch at St. Cloud State in 2025. The collaboration brings together St. Cloud State’s Department of Nursing Science and the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, to innovate on ways to prepare advance practice registered nurses to serve rural needs, while simultaneously meeting the state’s immediate workforce demands and prioritizing education opportunities for registered nurses already working in the CentraCare Health system by allowing then to significantly expand their scope of responsibility and impact. IT’S TIM… IN ACTION
Dr. Phyllis Greenberg and Dr. Rona Karasik
HT TP S://TODAY.STCLOUDSTATE.EDU/MAG | SPRING / SUMMER 2021
…xpanding St. Cloud State University’s graduate portfolio to provide programs to prepare students for leadership roles in market-relevant fields such as health and wellness is a staple of the It’s Time initiative. Learn more at scsu.mn/itstime
