USD Magazine Spring 2008

SAVE T H E D A T E

TAKING CARE Schoo l of Nur s i ng takes the l ead i n get t i ng doc tora l cand i dates the fund i ng they need to cont i nue by Barbara Davenport [ w e l l b e i n g ]

February 29 Grandparents Weekend

This year’s activities include classes, a Mass at Founders Chapel, tours of both the school and the city, and a welcome reception. Visitors won’t want to miss out on the Saturday breakfast, which features a talk with the new dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, William Headley. To learn more, go to www.sandiego.edu/parents. At this gala, alumni will be present- ed with the Mother Rosalie Clifton Hill Service Award, the Bishop Charles Francis Buddy Humanitari- an Award, the Author E. Hughes Career Achievement Award, and inducted into the Chet and the Marguerite Pagni Family Athletic Hall of Fame. For further informa- tion, ticket sales and sponsorship opportunities, call (619) 260-4819. May 3 City of Hope Walk Nearly 3,000 walkers are expected to gather for either a 3K or 5K walk through campus to participate in the City of HopeWalk to Cure Breast Cancer, with an aim toward raising $200,000 for breast cancer research and treatment. The day’s activities are family-friendly and include live music, entertainment, sponsor give- aways and a survivors pavilion. To register, go to www.cityofhope.org/ WalkforHope/sandiego. May 17, 24-25 Commencement Law School graduates will receive their degrees on Saturday, May 17 at 9 a.m. at the Jenny Craig Pavilion, while the rest of the university’s graduate stu- dents march across that stage a week later at 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 24. Undergraduate com- mencement takes place on Sunday, May 25 at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. For fur- ther details, go to www.sandiego. edu/commencement/. April 26 Alumni Honors

C arolyn Etland, a doctoral candidate in the Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science’s Ph.D. program, almost didn’t apply. The palliative care nurse knew she wanted to teach, but the cost of the Universi- ty of San Diego’s programwas daunting. She was poised to start online doctoral coursework at the University of Utah, but she was drawn back by the quality of USD’s curriculum.“I didn’t know how I was going to do it when I started,” she says.“I took it on faith.” That trust has been reinforced with a tuition loan from the Nurse Faculty Loan Program, managed by the school. In 2007, for the third consecutive year, Ph.D. pro- gram Chair Patricia Roth secured more than $200,000 of program

FINAL ANSWER School of Law professor Junichi Semitsu appeared on the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? in mid-January for two nights. After correctly guessing the answer to the $25,000 question with the help of his “phone a friend” lifeline (turns out the Rosetta Stone features writing in both Egyptian and Greek), Semitsu ultimately came up with the wrong answer to the $50,000 question (“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, of approximately 197 million eligible voters in 2004, about how many voted in the presi- dential election?”). The profes- sor’s guess was 85 million, but the correct answer was, in fact, 125 million. Nonetheless, Semitsu walked away with a cool $25,000. to become the faculty who will train the next generation. Hardin encourages all M.S.N. candidates — the majority of the school’s 300 students — to expand their goals and aim for a doctorate. One statistic speaks to the school’s success: of San Diego County’s nine schools of nursing, seven are led now or have been led by USD graduates. The school is ranked in the top 10 percent of nursing schools, and its 150 doc- toral graduates teach and lead in 90 institutions. The efforts of Roth and Dean Hardin have made a substantial impact on the current class. Etland says, “I can’t describe to you the gratitude I feel to the school. Everyone in my program has funding, which is unheard of.” [ q u i z k i d ]

funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; she’s garnered more than $560,000 in the last four years. If Etland, who graduates next year, teaches full time in a school of nursing or in a clinical track, up to 85 percent of the principal and interest of her loans may be forgiven. Dean Sally Hardin and Roth are committed to securing funding for their students to develop nurses who will be leaders in their field. The need is urgent: California faces a current shortage of 10,000 nurs- es; nationally the shortage of trained nurses will reach 1 million by 2020. Roth and Hardin have built the school’s M.S.N. and doc- toral programs to prepare nurses for careers as researchers, clinical teachers and senior executives, and

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SPRING 2008