by Washington Adventist University Staff
Washington Adventist University and Adventist HealthCare have renewed their long-held partnership toward enhancing education, training, and, ultimately, care for the community.
The world of healthcare is tumultuous on its best days. Adventist HealthCare is a strong presence in the DMV community and beyond. As the pandemic has spread across the region, Adventist HealthCare has been a significant resource for the surrounding states and municipalities, offering support to a populace in need of quality healthcare. Washington Adventist University has become a resource for Adventist HealthCare by providing qualitycandidates for nursing and other healthcare field jobs.
Adventist HealthCare President Terry Forde says, “The evolu- tion of how education has grown and changed over the years has been a very significant support to the healthcare ministry. One of the things that we rely on is a rich source of talent from our universities. Particularly, Washington Adventist University has been a big part of that source. We hire over 2000 nurses in our system. That’s an incredible amount of talent and people that we need to hire every single year. So being able to partner with a local university like WAU is significant. it poses a signifi- cant source of resources and people for us.”
WAU’s focus is to educate strong moral leaders for today’s workforce. The pride WAU has in the nurses and health professionals currently working within Adventist healthCare is profound. The healthcare professionals at WAU are offered a chance to be nurtured in an environment that will allow them to integrate into a unique workforce like Adventist HealthCare.
Dr. Cheryl Kisunzu, WAU’s Provost, has been working dili- gently to engender a deeper relationship between Adventist HealthCare and the university. “We want to express our deep appreciation for the intentionality that Adventist HealthCare is portraying through their generosity toward excellence in Christian education and care for the community.” The Provost continues, “Our programs will be strengthened to provide distinctive Christ-centered nursing care through excellence in Christ-centered Nursing Education.”
In the coming year, the partnership will offer nursing students a chance to have more generous support through scholarships and the provision of an endowed chair, showing strong leadership towards the excellence of education and training.
Dr. Kisunzu plans to continue to explore ways that the two institutions can continue to strengthen each other as the part- nership evolves.
Terry Forde says, “We are very excited to be a part of it...and ensure that the nursing program grows and continues to push towards excellence as you have been over the last many years.”