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Vital Signs

Super Students!

Inés Abad-Manterola

Columbia University School of Nursing (New York, N.Y.)
$1,000 Scholarship

Inés, who is described by her professors as “extremely intelligent, resourceful and enthusiastic,” never seems to get tired of learning. After graduating Cum Laude from Tufts University in May 2003 with a BS in biology and a BA in community health, she transferred to the nursing program at Columbia last fall. She expects to complete her BSN degree in May, then plans to continue on for an MSN and become a Nurse Practitioner.

In addition to her outstanding academic performance (she had a 3.4 grade point average at Tufts), Inés has an extensive record of community service. She has volunteered as an Emergency Medical Technician, coordinated an AIDS outreach program, tutored Hispanic kids, volunteered at a student-run community health clinic, written articles on public health topics for the Tufts University Community Health Program newsletter and more.

In 2002, Inés volunteered with Plan Internacional, an organization that assists communities in Ecuador, focusing on issues related to family health. Working with local indigenous communities in the province of Cotopaxi, she taught health education to families, provided medicines and vitamins, and wrote up a research study on the causes of malnutrition among children in these communities.

“Her experience in Ecuador was transformative and contributed to her awareness and commitment to working with Spanish-speaking people in the U.S.,” says Frances Chew, a biology professor at Tufts. “She will become a capable, thoughtful, caring and highly effective [nursing] professional.”

Jennifer S. Liu

University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing

$1,000 Scholarship

Jennifer is a BA-to-MSN student in UCSF’s accelerated Master’s Entry Program in Nursing (MEPN). This highly competitive program is designed to address the nursing shortage by giving exceptionally accomplished students the opportunity to pursue pre-licensure studies combined with master’s work in advanced practice nursing.

“Ms. Liu exemplifies what our MEPN program intends, by addressing the critical nursing shortage, especially in immigrant, underserved communities,” says Jeff Kilmer, director of student and curricular affairs at UCSF School of Nursing. “By focusing on community and cross-cultural health, she will be trained to pursue her dream of developing prevention programs for immigrant communities in California’s medically underserved urban centers.”

Jennifer is extremely active in providing volunteer service to Chinese communities, both in California and in China. She has taught English at a camp in rural China and to local immigrants in the Bay Area. As an immigration paralegal at a San Francisco law firm, she assisted many immigrants in obtaining U.S. visas. Plus, she performs many functions for her local church, which serves two culturally and linguistically different congregations: Mandarin and English.

Above all, Jennifer is an impressive scholar and researcher. She holds a BA in history from the University of California, Berkeley, where she maintained a 3.75 GPA, made the Dean’s List and was a Chancellor’s Scholar. For her senior thesis, she conducted original historical research on the Chinese student community at Berkeley in the 1960s.

Stormy Laurine Hulit

Briar Cliff University (Sioux City, Iowa)

$500 Scholarship

“Some days it was as if she couldn’t learn enough,” one of Stormy’s professors, H. Al Martyn, says of this highly talented American Indian nursing student. Stormy, who grew up on the Winnebago reservation in Nebraska, is attending Briar Cliff University as the second part of a 2 + 2 cooperative nursing program between the university and Little Priest Tribal College (LPTC) in Nebraska. When she graduates with her BSN degree in May 2005, she plans to come back to the reservation and work as a nurse at the community hospital.

“She is an asset to her school, her community and to the Indian people,” says Dr. Betty Red Leaf, dean of academics at LPTC. “In addition to excelling in academics, she edited the college’s newspaper, is an active member in the Student Senate and was a member of the college’s Gikan-daa-mowin (Knowledge) Challenge Team. She continues to assist her peers in reaching their educational goals.”

Not only is Stormy passionate about learning, she has also demonstrated strong skills in research. As a participant in the 2001 Summer Research Enhancement Program, sponsored by Diné College, she presented her research project “Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska War on Diabetes: Team Up, Defeat Diabetes” to her peers, faculty and the community. In 2002 Stormy interned at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, working with the agency’s global TB prevention program. At the end of the summer internship, she gave a report on TB control in the state of Nebraska.

Shannon Russell

Emory University (Atlanta)

$500 Scholarship

A 3.63 GPA, a highly focused commitment to achieving her career goal and a strong interest in helping others through volunteerism are just three of the outstanding qualities that helped Shannon capture a Minority Nurse Magazine Scholarship.

“She is one of the finest students I’ve come across in over 13 years of teaching,” says Dr. Lita Hooper, a faculty member at Georgia Perimeter College, where Shannon completed an associate’s degree before transferring to Emory’s highly competitive nursing program last fall. “Moreover, she was more than willing to help other students when they struggled with the material. She would even volunteer to serve as a group leader for small group assignments.

“Ms. Russell has worked toward her degree here with total commitment to her goal: to become a pediatric nurse,” Dr. Hooper continues. “She researches her field to keep abreast of controversies and issues dealing with the latest technologies and treatments. She volunteers at a hospital to earn first-hand knowledge of working with children. She also speaks with pediatric nurses to further enhance her understanding of the demands of the career.”

Dr. Hooper is confident that Shannon “will be an asset to any nursing program because of her desire to serve low-income children who may otherwise go untreated. She is prepared to devote her career to working with people of color who may not have access to health care.”