Seven graduate from accelerated nursing program

08/19/2014 12:21 PM

Cheers and hugs punctuated the air as seven Bradley accelerated nursing students celebrated the end of their Bradley journey at the mid-August Senior Recognition Ceremony. Students also received their nursing pins as part of the ceremony. 

Professor Melissa Jarvill, who supervised one of the cohort’s clinicals, lauded the students’ performance in those experiential settings.

“You impressed me each day you were there,” she said. “Patients, staff and families commented each day about how great you were doing.”

The day provided two celebrations for Sigel native Dylan Hille ’13 (health science), who received a job offer from Peoria’s OSF Saint Francis Medical Center before the ceremony.

“It’s been a long but great 15 months,” he said. “The stress is gone and I feel like a new person.”

Chelsea Rolando, a 2013 biochemistry graduate from Trivoli, called the second degree the “best decision of my life.”

“I came home from my clinical and knew that was what I was supposed to be doing. It just took me a little while to get there,” she said. “I always liked to help people, and as I matured here, I realized this was my calling.”

Kelley Kasper, of Frankfort, Illinois, received the June Snow Award. The award is presented to the highest-ranking graduating senior nursing major by the Epsilon Epsilon chapter of the Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society.

The accelerated BSN program, which began in 2010, is designed for students who have degrees in non-nursing fields. Students are exposed to a broad sampling of nursing environments in the Peoria area, which boasts the state’s largest medical community outside Chicago.

This summer’s graduates included:

Stephanie Graeve — Lincoln, Nebraska
Dylan Hille — Sigel, Illinois
Kelley Kasper — Frankfort, Illinois
Hayleigh Nidlinger — Galesburg, Illinois
Chelsea Rolando — Trivoli, Illinois
Molly Slape — Metamora, Illinois
Georgina Zamudio — Chicago, Illinois