Leaving a legacy

This story first appeared on the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing's news site. Read more 2024 Loyola Nursing magazine stories here. 

As a freshman during the coronavirus pandemic, Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing student Meseret Getachew was able to pay for school through loans and savings, defraying her expenses by living at home in Indianapolis. But as she entered her sophomore year, COVID relief funds dried up and the costs of attending school in person seemed out of reach.  

In the summer of 2021, she applied for more than 50 scholarships, hoping she would earn one that would allow her to stay at Loyola University Chicago. That September, she received a surprise email about a new MNSON program for underrepresented students that offered academic support and a crucial scholarship. 

“I will never forget that special moment of realizing I would have the financial support that would allow me to stay at the University,” she said. “The CARE Pathway has allowed me to continue my education, and that is a gift I will never be able to repay.”  

An emotional Getachew recounted her story at a May 2024 dinner honoring the first 12 graduates in the CARE (Collaboration, Access, Resources, and Equity) Pathway to the Bachelor of Science in Nursing, which provides academic, socio-emotional, and financial support to participating undergraduates.  

Launched in 2021 with a $2.2 million Health Resources and Services Administration grant, the CARE Pathway has grown from 22 to 60 students while drawing increased donor support, including a $1 million anonymous gift earlier this year. 

Dean Lorna Finnegan said the graduation of the first cohort marked a major milestone for MNSON, which originally envisioned the CARE Pathway as a small program for graduates of Loyola’s Arrupe College who wanted to transition to the four-year nursing program.  

With support from the federal grant, the CARE Pathway was opened to all nursing undergraduates from historically marginalized communities. Today, approximately one-sixth of participants are Arrupe graduates and about half are first-generation college students.  

The CARE Pathway aims to increase the diversity of the nursing workforce. Research shows that patients of color who are treated by nurses of similar backgrounds have better health outcomes, yet the nursing profession remains disproportionately white.   

Finnegan said the CARE Pathway’s growing enrollment has been a sign of the deep need for its services–but also a sign of its success.  

“The CARE Pathway has opened the door to the nursing profession for so many of our students. In turn, they have enriched our school with their talents and insights about why health equity is so important,” she said.  

Program coordinator Janie Ortiz applauded the graduates, who were sophomores when the CARE Pathway started.  

“They took a chance on an unknown program, a program that was so new it was still being built. As many of them will tell you, they didn’t know what they were getting into when they received that first email (announcing the program). Some even thought, ‘Is this a scam?’” she said. “But here we are, three years later.”  

She added, “The CARE Pathway was created from an idea that the nursing profession could do more for its patients and that health equity is achievable if we transform who is providing care. I am so proud that our CARE Pathway scholars will be at the forefront of this movement.”  

Several University leaders—including Fr. Tom Neitzke, S.J., then-Arrupe dean and vice president and special assistant to the president, and Keith Champagne, vice president for student development—spoke to the audience of family members, donors, CARE Pathway faculty and staff, and MNSON faculty mentors in the program. The event was held at the Lake Shore Campus and was funded by the Chicago Community Trust.  

Among the speakers was Vice President of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Dominique Jordan Turner, who described how the CARE Pathway’s vision “sealed the deal” as she was considering whether to accept her position at Loyola not long after George Floyd’s death. At a time when organizations across the country were making “performative” commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, she said, the program stood out for its focus on collaboration and efforts to match students with needed resources.  

In 2023, the CARE Pathway received the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’s first Catalyst Award, which recognizes a program or practices that reduce barriers and create a sense of belonging for faculty, staff, or students.  

Bridgette Rice, MNSON’s commencement speaker and the Richard and Marianne Kreider Endowed Professor in Nursing for Vulnerable Populations at the Villanova University M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing, called the graduates “trailblazers.”  

“You came in and you not only did something for yourselves, but you have left a legacy for other Black and Latinx populations to be able to go into our discipline and be able to change the world,” she said.  

May 2024