Overcoming barriers

Innovative Loyola Nursing program charts path for a diverse workforce and equity in health care

By Diane Dungey

Ofure Ogedegbe hopes to be a pediatric nurse, a dream accelerated by an innovative program at the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing that provided her with a scholarship—and a mission.

She discovered the CARE (Collaboration, Access, Resources, and Equity) Pathway to the Bachelor of Science in Nursing, created at Loyola to meet the broad goals of building a more diverse nursing workforce and addressing health disparities for under-resourced communities.

Recruiting and supporting Black and Latinx student nurses is at the core of the CARE Pathway. The initiative connected Ogedegbe to other students of color and their discussions enhanced what she was learning about health care inequities.

“This really opened my eyes to see how my community is struggling to get quality care,” says Ogedegbe, a senior from Des Plaines, Illinois. “Now, I specifically want to work with underrepresented communities. The CARE Pathway has been the best part of the nursing program for me.”

Nursing as a pathway to change

The CARE Pathway arose from Loyola’s recognition that nursing is a pillar in reducing disparities and improving health outcomes for all. That vision is consistent with the national blueprint outlined in “The Future of Nursing 2020 –2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity,” a consensus study from the National Academy of Medicine that charges the nation’s nearly 4 million nurses with achieving 10 outcomes that position the profession to contribute meaningfully to achieving health equity.

One major goal is building a nursing workforce that reflects the community. Patients benefit when nurses deeply understand the cultural, economic, and social factors that can be barriers to optimal care.

“We know that a more diverse nursing workforce, reflecting the racial and ethnic diversity of communities served, is a tangible and essential step toward achieving health equity,” says Lorna Finnegan, dean and project director of the CARE Pathway.

Reaching that goal will not be easy.

Across Illinois, 6 percent of registered nurses identified as Latinx and 8.4 percent as Black, a 2022 survey by the state’s Department of Financial and Professional Regulation showed. That compares to a Latinx population of 18.3 percent in Illinois and 28.7 percent in Chicago, and a Black population of 14.7 percent in Illinois and 29.2 percent in Chicago.

Increasing diversity among nursing students is the first step forward.

That’s the goal of the CARE Pathway, which goes far beyond recruitment to support and mentor students who might face financial, educational, and social barriers to getting a nursing degree. The CARE Pathway approach to easing these obstacles is envisioned as a model for nursing schools nationwide.

“It’s about more than recruiting diverse students and faculty—it’s about changing structures and creating a sense of belonging,” Finnegan says.

A strong foundation

The CARE Pathway was created in 2021 with a $2.2 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration. It grew out of an initiative to transition students into the School of Nursing from Arrupe College, Loyola’s two-year associate’s degree program.

The CARE Pathway has since received additional funding from the Illinois Board of Higher Education, the Chicago Community Trust, and private donors.

Financial support for students is a crucial starting point.

A CARE Pathway scholarship “has lifted a weight off my shoulders and my parents’ shoulders,” says Loyola junior Alejandra Castellanos of East Chicago, Indiana, an aspiring labor and delivery nurse who says her goal is to help reduce mortality rates for women of color giving birth.

The program focuses on building relationships and a welcoming culture through many facets: peer, alumni, and faculty mentoring; a CARE Pathway lounge where students can mingle and study; financial support; student success seminars; and holistic admissions.

In a recent seminar, CARE Pathway students practiced how to approach professors to ask for academic help. Another session reminded students to focus on the future triumph of graduation to help them through the rigors of nursing school.

The seminars are among the ways big and small that the CARE Pathway meets the needs of students, many of whom are the first in their family to go to college. “It gives them a pathway with the barriers removed,” says Regina Conway-Phillips, associate professor and School of Nursing department chair. “It allows them the ability to hope and trust that they have an opportunity to fulfill their dreams, when the system or the world is telling them that they can’t.”

Jorgia Connor, associate professor and assistant dean of the BSN program, recalls one student who had good grades but rarely spoke in class. In a written reflection, “the student wrote that it was hard to be the only Black person in the classroom. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve been there,’” says Connor, a Philippines native who has experienced being singled out and feeling like an outsider.

With the CARE Pathway, Connor says, “we want to make sure these students have a feeling of belonging.”

An ambitious future

The program is growing, with 62 students enrolled during the 2023–24 academic year, up from 22 in its first cohort. A “transformational” $4 million gift from Chicago’s Sisters of the Resurrection will provide financial aid for CARE Pathway students for several years, Finnegan says.

Finnegan dreams of building on the program’s initial success and expanding it to the school’s graduate and Accelerated BSN students. She also has ambitious plans to create a CARE Center for Student Success and Well-being that would translate the program’s evidence-based strategies into a framework other universities could replicate.

“Nursing schools recognize more than ever the importance of creating a more diverse nursing pipeline and supporting the unique needs of these students,” Finnegan says. “We believe the strategies we’re using to recruit and retain under-represented students can be a game changer for schools nationwide.”

A CARE Pathway student, meanwhile, hopes her example as a Latinx nurse will attract others to the profession. “Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of nurses that I was able to see as role models,” says Sofia Rodriguez, a junior from Elgin, Illinois. “I would like to inspire other minorities such as myself and show them that they are capable of going into any career they want.”