Leadership 2.0/HealthPath Summer Bridge Graduates Given College Preview

Making the transition from high school to college can be challenging, but 18 incoming freshman at the University of Cincinnati (UC) are starting the fall semester armed with some experience. These students took a sneak peek into college life thanks to seven weeks they spent this summer in the UC College of Nursing Leadership 2.0 and HealthPath Summer Bridge Program. They recently celebrated their graduation from the summer program in a ceremony at Procter Hall, home to the College of Nursing. 

"The whole goal of this seven week experience, is to build confidence, to build teams and to give them familiarity with the campus and the resources that are here so that in the fall, when they’re in the thick of it, it’s not as if they’re blind-sided, they know where to go, they know who to talk to,” says Kim McGinnis, program director for Leadership 2.0. "We also have them experience the really challenging academic courses they’re going to have in the fall and the spring in the hopes they can gain some real study skills.”

The 18 students lived together during the seven weeks at Turner Hall on Jefferson Avenue. They attended mock classes in anatomy and physiology, chemistry and microbiology and also took English classes for credit to help lessen their study load for upcoming semesters. Clinical settings were part of the program as well, with visits to Mercy Clermont Hospital and the UC Medical Center (UCMC).

Leadership 2.0 is a nursing workforce diversity initiative that supports underrepresented students applying to the college’s bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program. The HealthPath grant is funded by HealthPath Foundation of Ohio, which serves 36 counties in parts of western Ohio and eastern Ohio with a mission of strengthening the health care safety net to ensure that all Ohioans have access to primary health and dental care.

The projects are led by Greer Glazer, PhD, dean of the College of Nursing, and Karen Bankston, PhD, associate dean of clinical practice, partnership and community engagement in the college.

At the graduation ceremony, Bankston told the Summer Bridge students, "One of the goals and outcomes of this transition is for you to establish a sense of community and relationships and it sounds like you all did that. We know when we work together and we have someone we can depend on, who also understands what it is that we’re going through, that we can really come together.”

"I really liked visiting UCMC,” says nursing student Lizzy Zerhusen. "We got to see the helipad, the neurology floor and at Mercy Clermont we could choose to see something that we were interested in, so I chose the lab. Just being in the atmosphere of a hospital helped me confirm I made the right decision in choosing the College of Nursing.” 

Robert Richardson Jr., chair of the UC Board of Trustees can understand what the Summer Bridge students experienced during the seven weeks of the program. In 1997, he was a bridge student in UC’s Emerging Ethnic Engineers Summer Bridge program which he credits with preparing him to enter and succeed in the university’s College of Engineering and Applied Science and the College of Law. 

"The process of growth, the process of leadership, the process to become the nurse you want to be, the leader you will be, it’s a hard process, it’s not easy,” Richardson said to the students at their graduation. "People say you should embrace success, I think you should embrace struggle. That’s what it takes to succeed. You have to embrace as part of the process, that barriers are part of the process. Obstacles are only temporary and they are part of the process and they only become permanent if you let them become permanent.”

"It was a great experience, I really enjoyed it,” says Danny Sullivan, who was one of two male students in the Summer Bridge Program and is entering the nursing program. "I got study tips and they were preparing us for college. I feel like I’m able to go in strong and fresh. I became more of a leader than I was before I walked in the doors of Turner Hall the first day, which is exciting.”