Student Affairs

The Student Affairs Office continued to deliver services in a virtual format during the global pandemic. The team pivoted and found a way to continue supporting students from the point of admission to graduation and beyond, despite the many challenges presented during the pandemic crisis.

Undergraduate

ADMISSIONS

The College of Nursing Admissions Team worked fully remote due to the pandemic and maintained a superior level of service. The unit continued to engage with prospective and newly admitted students in virtual formats, facilitate evaluations, and processed the full lifecycle of an estimated 2,000 undergraduate applications.

Additionally, the unit maintained recruitment offerings with budget constraints. Recruitment efforts included the Cleveland Clinic professional development fair, Bay Pines VA nursing education fair, USF Bulls Unite, USF Virtual Major Expo, USF Health HOSA Symposium, and the College of Nursing’s Virtual Admissions Fair presented by the Bull Nurse Admissions Team.

Furthermore, walk-in advising for prospective students shifted to all virtual sessions and continue to be offered multiple times per month. As of this report, the Admissions Team conducted 265 walk-in advising sessions and 46 information sessions since July 2021. As of May 2021, information sessions consisted of two distinct formats to accommodate various stages of prospective students. One format is recorded, covering foundational admission requirements. The other format is a live, synchronous session facilitated by current nursing students on the Bull Nurse Admissions Team and moderated by the undergraduate admissions advisor, discussing nursing student experiences, expectations, norms, and preparedness.

ADVISING

The College of Nursing continued to offer advising services to undergraduate students through the Archivum platform, which allowed students to choose a phone or Teams advising appointment. During this year, the Archivum scheduling system was modified with the option of virtual “drop-in” appointments that were utilized during add/drop weeks of the Fall and Spring semesters. In total, College of Nursing advisors conducted 1,441 advising appointments for the 2020-21 academic year. To meet the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) accreditation requirements, the College of Nursing transitioned from a BS in Nursing to a BSN. During the 2020-21 academic year, the College of Nursing awarded 505 BSN degrees.

Moreover, the Advising Team continued to work with Stampede into Bull Nursing, a USF Student Government Organization run by Upper Division Nursing students, to provide programming for our Freshman Nursing Pathway and pre-nursing students. In the 2020-21 academic year, programming included a welcome meeting where the different areas of nursing and the prelicensure program were discussed, a time management workshop, how to prepare applications to the college pathways, and collaboration with USF’s Career Services on interview preparation for those students applying to our prelicensure programs.

The Nursing Living Learning Community, housed on the second floor of Juniper Hall, is a residential experience for USF College of Nursing students and is coordinated by the Student Affairs team at the College of Nursing. The residents, who are from diverse backgrounds, also include a mix of in-state and out-of-state students. Students in the Nursing Living Learning Community are provided a tutor for nursing prerequisite courses of Anatomy and Physiology I. Anatomy and Physiology II, Microbiology, and Human Nutrition. During the 2020-21 academic year, 124 hours of tutoring were offered to students and over 100 tutor-student interactions occurred.

During the 2020-21 academic year, the undergraduate academic advising team continued to provide professional development services. Because of the growing political/social discourse and increase in mental health stressors among students due to the pandemic, advisors took on additional professional development trainings to help educate themselves and remain a support for students, such as USF’s Enlightenment Series, events conducted by the Council for Academic Advising Multi-Cultural Academic Affairs Committee, and American College Personnel Association, Florida Academic Advising Association, and Council for Undergraduate Academic Advising conferences.

SOME OF THE MAJOR EVENTS COORDINATED THROUGH THE NURSING LIVING LEARNING COMMUNITY OVER THIS PAST YEAR:

• Week of Welcome Event

• Nursing Student Councils Panel

• Welcome to the WELL Event

• Ask A Nurse/Professional Event

Graduate

ADMISSIONS

Although the Admissions Team worked fully remote as a result of the pandemic, it maintained a superior level of service. The Team continued to engage with prospective and newly admitted students in virtual formats, facilitate evaluations, and processed the full lifecycle of an estimated 2,340 graduate applications (MSN, DNP, PhD, CRNA).

Recruitment efforts included the Cleveland Clinic professional development fair, Bay Pines VA nursing education fair, Sarasota Memorial Hospital education fair, College of Central Florida’s Graduate education fair, USF Health HOSA Symposium, and the College of Nursing’s Virtual Admissions Fair presented by the Bull Nurse Admissions Team. Although the Team initially had aimed to participate in a graduate recruitment event series with University of Florida Health, involving multiple in-person engagements from January through July 2021, the USF travel ban prevented our attendance due to the pandemic. For the first time, the Admissions Team executed a mass outreach to graduating BSN students from institutions within the Florida State University System, and we spoke with the College of Nursing’s undergraduate classes about graduate nursing programs.

At the conclusion of the Fall 2020 admission cycle, the Team participated in the inaugural Admissions Debrief meeting, which provided an optimal opportunity to reflect on processes and experiences that worked well and those with room for improvement. The Team set target enrollment numbers per degree level, concentration, and part-time/full-time classifications. Additionally, the Team implemented a more holistic applicant evaluation rubric that supported early admission offers for the highest qualified applicants, while stabilizing faculty effort in the interview stages. Furthermore, the Admissions Team now provides academic program plans with admission offers. As a result of impacts of the pandemic on the Fall 2021 admission cycle, some modifications to these improvements were necessary to respond to the applicant pools at hand while increasing volume.

• Gabbin’ with Greg Information

Sessions

• Class Schedule Search Event

• Virtual Interview Workshop

• Virtual Mock Interviews

Since July 2020, the Team has conducted 24 live/synchronous information sessions. Information sessions took on a refreshed delivery format, which reduced the run time while covering basic admission requirements, and included Q&A discussion with current nursing students on the Bull Nurse Admissions Team and current graduate nursing faculty. Faculty have become increasingly involved in information sessions. The Team also facilitated 8 live/synchronous application workshops. Application workshops eventually moved to a recorded video format for on-demand viewing. This was the first year to offer application workshops, which were implemented to meet the needs of prospective students challenged by the effects of the pandemic.

ADVISING

The USF graduate academic advisors continued to deliver stellar services to our graduate students. During this past year, the Advising Team onboarded close to 400 graduate students across all graduate programs. Additionally, the Graduate Advising Team continued to advise current graduate students. During pandemic restrictions, the Team utilized intrusive advising techniques and collaborated with the graduate faculty to ensure that graduate students were successful in their pursuit of education. Advisors went above and beyond for students, often hosting meetings after work hours or working on weekends to meet the needs of graduate working students. The Team was quick to assist with many virtual Town Halls, including set up, promotion, recording, and assistance with questions. From July 2020 until June 2021, the Team certified 289 students for graduation and assisted with completion of various forms requested by students, including Validation of Education forms and verification of education.

During the past year, the Team was able to streamline many of the processes in the unit, including creation of digital surveys to collect needed information to fill out various forms and utilization of DocuSign to eliminate the need for multiple emails. At the time of this report, there were over 5,000

emails and 700 phone

calls recorded.

Student Programming and Academic Support

Being in a virtual environment created difficulties with student engagement, but the Student Affairs Team was able to successfully implement virtual orientations for incoming students and assist with virtual pinning ceremonies. Additionally, graduating students and local partners were able to participate in a virtual Career Expo. Some of the events that were hosted during the past year include: Undergraduate and graduate orientations, Doctoral student celebrations, Baccalaureate pinning ceremonies, Week of Welcome events, Get the Scoop (virtual recruitment event), and a Career Expo.

Student Awards

• Nurse Anesthesia student, Matthew Jenkins, was recognized as the 2020 Tillman Scholar by the Pat Tillman Foundation.

• Nurse Anesthesia students, Helen “Liz” Rayburn and Sarah

Swank, each received a $3,000 scholarship from the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) Foundation.

• Nurse Anesthesia student, Seeta Spence Banfield was appointed by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists to serve as the student representative to the AANA’s education committee.

• PhD student, Maria Moreno, has been named one of the state’s McKnight Fellows.

• PhD nursing student, Angeline Saint Fleur, has been named one of the state’s McKnight Fellows.

• PhD student, Kailey Rinaldi, received a $500 Love of Learning

Award from The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. The award helps fund post-baccalaureate professional development for

Phi Kappa Phi members.

• PhD student Tina Mason received the Oncology Nursing Society’s 2021 Excellence in Advanced Clinical Practice Award.

• V-CARE student, Kimberly Hoefer, received the Honor-A-Bull

Award in the Health Sciences category. Student veterans were evaluated based on several criteria, including academics and the relationship between military service and student success. • BSN student, Yaritza Hernandez-Lugo, received a $500 scholarship from the Foundation for Academic Nursing, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s (AACN) philanthropic arm, to help students facing hardships during the pandemic.

• BSN student, Danielle Myers, was named the Grad With

Perfect Grades King O’Neal Scholar.

• BSN student, Anna Hopen, was the co-founder of the USF

Young Innovator Competition. In 2020, she received her first patent for her prescription compliance invention.

• BSN student, Amber Miller, wrote the winning inscription for the oak tree dedication during the first USF Health Grad Week celebration. “Your ‘Why’ is the reason you are standing here today. It is your reason to stay grounded. It is your reason to adapt and overcome. Make it your foundation and you will grow to do great things.”

• The Nursing Student Council won Outstanding Student Organization Award with USF Health for the academic year.

STUDENT TUTORS PROVIDED EXAM PREP IN THE FOLLOWING PRELICENSURE COURSES:

• Complex Health I

• Complex Health II

• Pharmacology

• Pathophysiology