Class News

Jean Ross Neuman is retired from nursing after many years. Her family continues to appreciate her training as she still provides insights to their medical needs. Her loving family includes six great-grandchildren. In October, Jean and her husband, Edward, celebrated their 60^th wedding anniversary.

Alumni Weekend was an experience which I truly hope to repeat. Somehow, some way we plan to attend in 2019. Seeing classmates was a real pleasure, but even more I enjoyed hearing about how well the school is responding to needs of the future–both the students and those whom they will serve.

Class Reporter: Arianne Regester

Twelve members of the Class of 1959 gathered during the 2014 Alumni Weekend to celebrate its 55-year reunion. Those attending one or more events included Evelyn Gant Chesney, Mary Sue Clark Spahr, Jill Derstine, Trudy Jones Hodges, Jean Hummer Hamlin, Mary Keener Warfield, Meredith Fawcett Kooyman, Peg Royer Kostopoulous, Rachel Meyers Seitz, June Persson, Pat Vreeland Bredenberg, and Ruth Worthington Yurchuck. We enjoyed all the weekend activities, from the Bond Street Social on Thursday night, tours of the hospital or medical archives on Friday, our class dinner at the Hopkins Club, and the JHNAA business meeting on Saturday, which was followed by lunch. Dean Davidson’s gala, An Evening with the Stars: Celebrating 125 Years of Hopkins Nursing, was a great way to end this wonderful weekend!

Peg Kostopoulos distributed a reunion booklet that summarized responses to our class information survey, with pictures of us as new grads and current information of where we are now. Of course the highlight of this reunion was getting reacquainted with classmates. It was great to reconnect, and to share memories, laugh, and talk about the many changes we saw on the medical campus. The new buildings are awesome, Hampton House is an office building, and the old tunnel from Hampton House to the hospital has not changed much at all. We are already looking forward to our 60^th reunion!

Class Reporter: Ruth Worthington Yurchuck

Louise Fitzpatrick, EdD, RN, FAAN, Connelly Endowed Dean and Professor at the College of Nursing, Villanova University, was recently re-elected to the Board of Trustees for the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools. Dr. Fitzpatrick has also been invited to be a member of the External Advisory Board of the Rafic Hariri School of Nursing at the American University of Beirut. She was selected “based on her prominent and valuable contributions to the discipline and profession of nursing at the national and global levels.” She was recognized in May with the prestigious Legion of Honor Gold Medallion of the Philadelphia-based Chapel of Four Chaplains, the organization’s highest award and one that has also been given to U. S. presidents. According to her nominating statement, Dr. Fitzpatrick was honored as a “living legend of the profession of Nursing and a national and international icon in the fields of Nursing education and history … she has devoted her life to education, service to others and caregiving in the highest sense.” The organization also acknowledged her global impact on service to the underserved.

The Class of 1964 had a wonderful 50^th reunion at Alumni Weekend. We had 34 attendees arriving from 10 states and Scotland by car, plane, and train. The Reunion Committee did a fabulous job of contacting every class member and encouraging her to come. Unfortunately, several weren’t well enough to make it but they were in our thoughts. Through the generosity of 60 percent of our class, we raised nearly $220,000 for the Martha N. Hill PhD Endowment Fund. We had an elegant Class Dinner at the Hopkins Club and lots of opportunities to reminisce in our hospitality suite at the hotel (thanks Mary Jo Kubeluis and Sue Gormley Buchanan). At Saturday’s luncheon, the class received Johns Hopkins Alumni Association 50 Year Medallions and Alice Kiger received a Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Global Achievement Award. Then Eileen Sweetland Leinweber presented a moving salute to the class followed by a fantastic slide show of the class as we were then and are now prepared by Diane Demarest Becker. Diane also made wonderful memory books for the class. We are looking forward to as much fun for our 55^th reunion.

Class Reporter: Gerry Pignato Peterson

The Class of ’69 participated in reunion activities celebrating 45 years since graduation. Impossible! Can it be true?! Yes! We had an enthusiastic group who appeared in person while others were present in spirit. On Friday, class members toured the old turf, including highlights like Hampton House, the tunnel, and, of course, the statue of Christ that we passed so many times. We visited older, familiar parts of the hospital and were astounded by all the new buildings at Hopkins.

We had our largest Class of ’69 showing on Friday evening for our dinner at the Hopkins Club on the Homewood campus. Spouses captured our group on film (see photo). A smaller group appeared in our official class photo, which was taken on Saturday after the business meeting. The weather was perfect and we vowed to rally our class to come to Baltimore for our 50^th reunion … in 2019. Mark your calendars now! We collected updates from our classmates that will be included in the next few issues of Vigilando.

Class Reporter: Maureen Dodd

The Class of 1979 gathered in presence and spirit for the 35^th reunion celebration of our graduation from the SON. Jane Houck, Kitti Watts, Carol Kalfon, and Susan Balfour enjoyed a wonderful evening of sharing and catching up since we were last together many years ago. We were also able to share in our fellow classmates’ life adventures through Jane Houck’s diligent emails and letters that have kept us all informed of where our fellow classmates’ professional paths have led, as well as personal family celebrations and sorrows many have experienced along the way. While we were a small group in actual numbers for the weekend reunion celebration, we were a complete class in spirit just as we were during the years that shaped the beginning of our nursing adventure in East Baltimore 37 years ago.

Class Reporter: Susan Balfour

ACCELERATED Lois Wessel is a Family Nurse Practitioner at Celebremos La Vida and Community Clinic Inc., as well as a faculty member in the NP program at the School of Nursing and Health Studies at Georgetown University. She has published and lectured widely on care for the underserved, immigrant health, and health literacy.

ACCELERATED Michael Frakes married Malisa Iannino on June 14^th in Boston (see photo). Michael directs clinical services and organizational quality for Boston MedFlight and sits on the ANCC Commission on Magnet. Malisa is a nurse in the newborn intensive care unit at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Marian Grant (also MSN ’05) was one of seven health professionals from across the country selected to participate in the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy fellows program for 2014-2015. The program provides exceptional midcareer health professionals the opportunity to actively participate in health policy at the federal level. Marian is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Health at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.

Tresa Dusaj graduated with a PhD from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She welcomed a daughter, Saachi Kaur, on March 27.

Since 2004, Lai Wong graduated from the MSN-FNP/MPH program, stayed in the Baltimore area, got married and had a son, Lucas (now 2 years old), while working in vascular surgery for a while. Currently she is taking a break and will start a new position in orthopedics soon. She is sorry to miss everyone at the reunion, but is definitely proud of the Class of 2004! She included a photo from her family’s trip to Hong Kong in May.

ACCELERATED Jan Kaminsky (also PhD ’13) was named Executive Director of the School of Nursing at Kean University in New Jersey as of September 2014. She looks forward to the growth opportunities ahead, including a brand-new facility for next September and the first cohort of PhD students moving through the program.

ACCELERATED After graduation, Julia Tracey worked for three years as an RN at JHH on Meyer 3 Adult Psychiatry and then CMSC 9 (10 North) Adolescent Med/Surg. Julia completed the Pediatric NP program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013 and accepted a position as a Nurse Practitioner Fellow in Adolescent Medicine & Behavioral Health at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dedra Danielle Sally spent the first four years of her nursing career working on a high-risk labor and delivery unit in Philadelphia, Pa. In 2013, she completed an MSN in Nurse-Midwifery and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner at the University of Pennsylvania. Dedra is relocating to New Jersey to work for a private practice as a Certified Nurse-Midwife.