Story: Phillip Tutor | Photo: Betsy Compton
Nursing professor brings practical experience to her role as an educator
Polite as possible, Dr. Chineda Hill, an associate professor of nursing at the 乐播传媒, is nonetheless adamant. She permits no hesitation. She harbors no doubt. A smile shades her spunk. 鈥淚鈥檓 a nurse,鈥� she said.
The rub is that she said that not from a hospital floor but instead from her Spieth Hall office, where she鈥檚 taught for a decade in 乐播传媒鈥檚 Ira D. Pruitt Division of Nursing. Which is why her response to a simple question — 鈥淲hat are you, an educator or a nurse?鈥� — is so delicious.
鈥淓ven when you say you’re in education, I’m still a nurse. I cannot be in this role without being a nurse,鈥� she said. 鈥淗ands down, I’m going to say I’m a nurse.鈥�
Ask again and she remains unbent.
鈥淚’m going to say I’m a nurse,鈥� she said.
And why?
鈥淚’ve never wanted to be anything but a nurse,鈥� she said.
With its聽well publicized 100-percent pass rate in the聽National Council Licensure Examination聽(NCLEX) exam聽and the popularity of its Project EARN scholarship program, 乐播传媒鈥檚 nursing school has become an Alabama Black Belt success story at a time when pandemic-related nursing shortages have been felt nationwide. The timing couldn鈥檛 be more prescient.聽
Being a nurse, as well as an educator, matters, Hill believes.
鈥淚 can say it’s the buy-in from our administrator, from Dr. Mary Hanks, that buy-in that we’re small, but we can do it,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e try to provide them the best. I think we are trying to better ourselves, to better our students and give our students the best that they can have.鈥�
Hill鈥檚 path to nursing school didn鈥檛 start in high school or as a college student, but instead when she was 5 or 6 years old in Lanett, a Chambers County, Alabama, town hard on the Georgia state line. Her grandmother, Minnie Jackson, worked as a surgical technician at a nearby community hospital and often took her granddaughter to work. Though kept from operating rooms, Hill absorbed the human essence of hospital work — the compassion, the assistance, the skill, the commitment.
The die was set.
鈥淚 wanted to help,鈥� Hill said. 鈥淚 saw that she was helping people and coming in that hospital and people needing the help, and I wanted to do the same thing — not so much as a surgical technician, but a nurse. I wanted to go into helping people.鈥�
Jackson, part mentor, part doting grandmother, empowered Hill鈥檚 burgeoning passion, buying her a set of lilac-colored nursing scrubs and a lavender-tinted stethoscope the future 乐播传媒 professor rarely let out of her sight. 鈥淚 used to walk around and dance with that scrub set on,鈥� Hill said. 鈥淪he said I wore it all the time.鈥�
鈥淲e have to mentor throughout our program.聽We see that our mentoring program has really developed our students, and they’ve bought into it, and we’ve bought into it as well.鈥�
— Dr. Chineda Hill
Degrees from Southern Union State Community College, Auburn University and the University of Alabama and a broad range of experience led to Hill鈥檚 role in orthopedics, neurology and urology at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa. The little girl in the lilac-shaded scrubs from Lanett had finally arrived, becoming a dedicated professional who likes to read romance novels and take boisterous girl trips to warm-weather sites like Jamaica, Cancun and the Dominican Republic.
Her desire to keep following her grandmother鈥檚 motivation never waned, though. When she earned her master鈥檚 degree from the University of Alabama, she discovered that her main role — bedside nursing — was preventing her from using portions of her advanced training. When an opportunity arose as an education coordinator at DCH, she embraced teaching the hospital鈥檚 inexperienced patient-care assistants (PCAs), wholly unaware that her career move would eventually lead to 乐播传媒鈥檚 campus in Livingston.
鈥淎 lot of the PCA students would say, 鈥榊ou would make a good nurse educator.鈥� And I’m like, really? Because I have a sister who’s a special-needs educator, and I never thought of myself as an educator, especially not in nursing, because I wanted to take care of patients,鈥� she said.
鈥淚 was enjoying it. I love teaching them and showing them. It was still nursing for me. It still was my passion. I was still doing my passion.鈥�
In 2012, 乐播传媒鈥檚 nursing school had a faculty opening for an assistant professor. An hour up the road, Hill mulled the opportunity and thought about her PCA students鈥� comments. She applied, 乐播传媒 hired her, and she immediately began teaching in Livingston.
鈥淚t was different. I tell everybody, you just don’t segue into it just because you鈥檝e got the training for it,鈥� Hill said. 鈥淵ou have to learn how to teach. It’s a process for me.鈥� She tackled that process as she had previous ones. The nurse-turned-educator returned to school, earning her doctorate of education in 2019 from the University of Alabama.
鈥淚 had the master’s degree (in nursing), but I felt like to really hone in and to perfect what I needed to do to get these students to understand and be able to go and take a standardized test, I needed to get some more special education to do it,鈥� Hill said. It was paramount, she believed, to be as adept at teaching as she was nursing. 鈥淕etting that doctoral degree helped me tremendously.鈥�
Sentimentality aside, Hill鈥檚 recollections from the early hospital days with her grandmother seem to resonate when she discusses the mentorship component of 乐播传媒鈥檚 nursing school. Hill never appears far removed from the grass roots of the profession and the bonds that form between professors and students.
鈥淲e have to mentor throughout our program,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e see that our mentoring program has really developed our students, and they’ve bought into it, and we’ve bought into it as well.鈥� Teaching nursing fundamentals and foundational courses to 鈥渢he babies,鈥� as she describes new enrollees, is more joy than chore, she says.
She wouldn鈥檛 have it any other way.
鈥淚 would not change my career path. I’m serious,鈥� she said. 鈥淚’ve only wanted to be a nurse, and being an educator, that’s a bonus. But the nurse is what I’ve always aspired to be.鈥�