2024 Seedworks Symposium
Guest speakers and faculty experts discuss awakening nurses' power post-pandemic.
Content
Strategic Use of Power and Voice in Uncertain Times for Nurses and Other Health Professions
Join the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing for the 2024 Seedworks Symposium: Strategic Use of Power and Voice in Uncertain Times for Nurses and Other Health Professions taking place on Thursday, Dec. 5 in the Campus Center Auditorium from 3 to 5 p.m. There is no cost to attend. This event is open to the public. Register now.
This event is in-person, but a recording will be made available at a future date. If interested in the recording, please contact Jess Dillard-Wright.
Awakening the power of nurses post-pandemic
As the post-COVID pandemic era emerges, discussions of returning to the pre-pandemic state of health care belie the inadequacies of a bureaucratic healthcare system that has failed to value and provide humanistic care, neglected nurses’ engagement in decision making and satisfaction with work, and has been unable to deliver on promises of efficiency, quality, and cost in a shifting political and economic landscape.
As nurses continue to be the nation’s most trusted profession (Gallup, 2023), they have an opportunity—and a mandate—to be the leading voice for transforming health care to a ‘new normal.’ Nurses are awakening to the power they have and are demanding change. But demands are not sufficient. This presentation will explore the strategic use of power to transform health care, including the importance of framing key issues for target audiences, using one’s nursing voice for showcasing both issues and potential creative solutions, and proactively identifying opportunities for working with communities and other stakeholders to lead changes that promote health.
The session will include a presentation on the “old” and “new normal” and opportunities for nurses to create a preferred “new normal” following an expert panel discussion on strategies for nurses to use their voices in thoughtfully bold and strategic ways to identify and advance key policy priorities. The session will close with small group discussion of commitments to action and large group sharing of new ideas for both individual and collective action.
Featured Presenters
Diana Mason is the senior policy service professor at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University School of Nursing and professor emerita at Hunter College, where she held the Rudin Endowed Chair and founded the Center for Health, Media, and Policy. She is the program director for the International Council of Nurses’ Global Nursing Leadership Institute, a past president of the American Academy of Nursing, and former editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Nursing.
Monica R. McLemore is a tenured professor in the Child, Family, and Population Health Department and the director of the Manning-Price Spratlan Center for Anti-Racism and Equity (CARE) in Nursing at the University of Washington School of Nursing. She currently holds the endowed professorship and lecture in health promotion.
Faculty Experts
Mason and McLemore will be joined by a panel of Elaine Marieb College of Nursing faculty experts for conversation, shared commitments, and action.
Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife with more than thirty years of experience, an associate professor of nursing, and director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She founded Lucinda’s House, a Black maternal health collective that promotes maternal health equity through community collaboration and provides support and education programs. Canty is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, the American College of Nurse Midwives, and the National Black Nurses Association and a Luminary Fellow in the Academy of Diversity Leaders in Nursing.
Rae Walker (they/them) is an associate professor, a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, and an invention ambassador for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They direct the nursing PhD program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Learn more on their website.
Favorite Iradukunda is an assistant professor in the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing and a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She is dedicated to advancing the holistic well-being of Afro-diasporic women, families, and communities. Her research focuses on the intersection of multiculturalism, immigration, and health outcomes for women and birthing persons, addressing maternal health disparities through community-centered and culturally congruent interventions. Iradukunda is also committed to transforming nursing education through decolonial knowledge co-creation processes. Globally, she has worked at the intersection of women’s health, community health, and health policy. Learn more on her website.
The Seedworks Social Justice in Nursing Symposium was created in 2014 with the support of Susan Hagedorn, a nurse, filmmaker, philanthropist, and social justice activist. Hagedorn, a 1977 UMass Amherst nursing graduate and professor emerita at the University of Colorado College of Nursing, endowed the symposium to provide a venue for exploring urgent social justice concerns in nursing and healthcare. Through this series, the Seedworks program aims to facilitate lifelong change in nursing.