President's Message

Stay Connected

As we move into summer, we at the Association committee level are busy planning the festivities for our upcoming Homecoming weekend, September 28-29. The reunion classes (that’s mine, too, this year!) are planning to attend the group events, working on their individual class celebration, and putting together memory books. Homecoming is a great time for all of us to come back to see friends, faculty, staff and catch up on the latest developments at Johns Hopkins and the School of Nursing. The cocktail party is a great way to kick things off. There will also be a lecture and tours of the school and hospital. Please come and join your friends for a fun-filled walk down memory lane. We have many graduate alumni within the leadership of our association, and I would like to extend a warm welcome to our master’s and doctorate alumni who may not have had the opportunity to bond with an entire class but would like to come back and share some laughs and camaraderie.

During the past several months, we have met with students and assessed their vision for increasing the involvement of new grads in the alumni association. They are very helpful in giving us ideas of how we can increase our interaction with students in order to form a sustaining relationship. Many of these ideas were related to career shadowing and networking. We also partnered with nursing alum liaisons from the “big” JHU Alumni Association to determine how to engage students to be involved on the expanded campus—to assist with their current needs (e.g. applying for service grants, etc) and interest them in joining our alumni association after graduation. We are proud of our efforts in this direction and hope that some of you, whom we have not heard from in a while, will get in touch with us to join in networking with new grads—sharing your career and nursing experiences. The networking piece has been identified by students as a very important factor in the alum-student connection. Help keep this strong by contacting Melinda Rose at mrose@son.jhmi.edu (or call 410-955-4285) and volunteer to present or mentor. While we recruit our new grads, I must note that our rates of dues-paying members have dropped below those of some other schools. Please pay your dues and help us continue our efforts.

One last request: We want to have an updated list of alumni so we can stay connected and recognize the outstanding achievements of our graduates. Please go to www.alumni.jhu.edu and click on HopkinsNET—the online directory for JHU. It allows you to update your personal and professional information so you can find your classmates and they can find you. In addition, the university asks for nominations for outstanding service and achievement from the Nurses’ Alumni Association, and we want to send them 10 names every year. Thank you for your help.

I wish everyone a safe and relaxing summer and hope to see many of you in the fall!