Being a nurse means getting intimately familiar with patients: their needs, their anxieties and their life stories. Emma Hoeppner, a Class of 2025 alumna, found out there are other ways to get to know a patient than in a clinical role.
“It kind of put me out of my comfort zone to go into a patient’s room not as a student, but as part of a research team,” Hoeppner says. “I think it has made me grow a lot and I’m definitely less nervous about doing it now.”
Hoeppner worked with Associate Professor Dr. Teresa Jerofke-Owen and Clinical Associate Professor Dr. Joan Totka on developing a tool that would better gauge family preferences around the care their children receive. Hoeppner interviewed dozens of patients and practitioners about how the health care system could better communicate with families. Those interviews will inform Jerofke-Owen’s research.
Hoeppner gained this experience through the Disciplinary Honors in Nursing program. Offered across eight areas of study at the university, Disciplinary Honors challenges students by engaging them in professional projects on top of their regular curricula. All Disciplinary Honors students must complete six extra credits of coursework and complete a discipline-specific project such as engaging in and disseminating research.
“Not only do I want to be a great nurse that provides outstanding patient care, I also want to be a well-rounded person who really values giving back to the community.”
Hannah Sheehan, Class of 2025
For many nursing students, that project is community-engaged research, which involves partnering with members of the population group being studied. Class of 2025 alumna Kyla Schwager conducted research alongside Assistant Professor Dr. Sylvia Pena around eating behaviors in the Hispanic community, specifically how cultural beliefs impact women’s diet quality.
Schwager, who has worked with service programs such as Midnight Run and Marquette Mardi Gras, specifically chose Marquette because of its commitment to bettering others’ lives. She sees her time in Disciplinary Honors as a deepening of that mission.
“We talk a lot in nursing about vulnerable populations, whether that be economic, mental or physical,” Schwager says. “Collaborating with Dr. Pena has broadened my horizons on what it means to work with a vulnerable population. There are so many social determinants at work that I wasn’t aware of before I did this project.”
Disciplinary Honors also comes with the opportunity to present research at conferences and symposia. Students created research posters to share with other professionals; some even gave podium presentations.
“I’ve worked with my one of my professors, Dr. Amy Newman, for about two years now, and throughout that time, we’ve been working on a project that is focused on investigating communication during the early pediatric cancer treatment period,” says Class of 2025 alumna Hannah Sheehan. “I feel like this experience of conducting the research and sharing it has helped me grow as a student, a future nurse and a person.”
While experiences like these are commonplace for doctoral-level nurses, they are much rarer for undergraduate students. Schwager brought up her time in Disciplinary Honors frequently during job interviews and remarked that hiring managers seemed surprised about the depth of her involvement.
“It kind of sounds like I’m on a Ph.D. track while I’m still in the bachelor’s program,” Schwager says.
Schwager also said that while she had never considered going for an advanced degree prior to joining the program, she would be open to it now. Disciplinary Honors may not be as intense as a Ph.D., but it does offer students a taste of that lifestyle: education in research methods, investigating novel problems and finding answers to nursing research questions. Even students who are planning on being bedside nurses feel that the Disciplinary Honors approach will help them in their careers.
“Not only do I want to be a great nurse that provides outstanding patient care, I also want to be a well-rounded person who really values giving back to the community,” Sheehan says.
