Rosemary Herbert

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Slide - 50 Years, 50 Voices - Rosemary Herbert - 00:00
My name is Rosemary Herbert and I have many associations with UPEI. My
first one was when I was about five years old and my mum was a teacher, and
at that time in the early 1960’s, teachers in PEI—many of them did a
lot of upgrading, so my mum used to come to courses at Saint Dunstan's at
the time, and I would come with her when I was five and six years old. So I
used to go to Latin class, to English class, to History classes, and when I
got bored, I would go out and ride my bicycle around campus, so I think
that was the beginning of very warm feelings towards university life in
general, and in particular to Saint Dunstan's and then to UPEI. I always
felt very much at home here and I think it dates back to those early
experiences.


Slide - Attachment to UPEI - 01:07 
In the late 1970s I started taking courses here, I was a practicing
nurse—I graduated from Dalhousie University and came back to PEI to work
at the PEI hospital, and I also started taking courses in the public admin
program at UPEI and I really enjoyed those courses; many of them stand out,
particularly one by Father Bolger, Island History, and I took courses in
economics, and political science, business courses so that was a very
impactful time as well. And then, in 1992, when the nursing education
program moved to UPEI, I applied and I was absolutely thrilled to be one of
the first faculty members hired, so I started here on May of 1992, as a
faculty member in the School of Nursing, and from there it was just a
wonderful experience of being faculty member, Dean, I was acting
Vice-President of Academic Development for a while—So when I was walking
across campus today I just had these really strong senses of attachment to
the place, because of all of those different experiences.


Slide - School of Nursing, The early years - 02:31 
It was very exciting to have the School of Nursing open at UPEI, and those
early years were tremendously exciting and very very busy; when we first
opened the school, there was the Dean of Nursing—Dr. Margaret
Monroe—two faculty members, myself and Don Murnaghan, May Gallant who was
responsible for setting up our learning lab; and we had Edith Carty and
Mary Lou Austin and we were just a very small team, and a very busy team,
but we—it was a very creative time, there were all kinds of opportunities
for scholarly work; for developing the curriculum; for getting involved
with different projects and committees on campus; and it was just
tremendously stimulating and exciting. So I think that was probably the
highlight—that was one of the highlights, there were probably many
highlights for me while I was here on campus, but that was one—and then,
the  other highlight was when the school was accredited by the Canadian
Association of Schools of Nursing, so that meant that we met the national
standards, and received a lot of very positive feedback for our brand new
program, new curriculum, new philosophy of nursing education...So that was
a very exciting time. And, other exciting times certainly included; you
know when I served in senior administrative positions for the
university—it gave me an opportunity to get to know the whole university
community, the whole campus, get to know people across campus which was
always such a pleasure—and to get involved with some of the initiatives
at a University level, were very very exciting, and rewarding.


Slide - First students and building a curriculum - 04:32 
Initially we were in the basement of the Steele building, and it was
undergoing renovations. So, when our first students came in September of
1992, we were still in the middle of renovations, and moving furniture
around, so I can remember—holding especially—nursing labs and the
nursing skill space was not finished, so we were having labs sort of in the
middle of construction and people were going around with hardhats on, and
students were circulating. And in the midst of all that, we were trying to
present a united front, for the students—that we did know what we were
doing, that everything was organized and ready to go—and just
tremendous—there was tremendous opportunities to create. So, you know the
curriculum had been approved by senate, and we had all of the very short
course descriptions and then it was up to Don Murnaghan and myself—and
Dr. Monroe—to flesh out those courses in detail, and our curriculum was
based on the World Health Organization philosophy of primary health care.
So it was up to us to really look into the literature—the scholarly
literature—and try to determine 'How do you take the principles and
philosophy of primary healthcare from the WHO and turn that into a
curriculum, and how to thread it across the various courses within the
curriculum?'. So it was rather a daunting task but it was tremendously
exciting, and we—over those first few years—we brought in a number of
well-known scholars and researchers to help us with that process. And one
of the things that we ended up doing—because we couldn't actually find
what we were looking for in the literature—we created a theory of
nursing, a philosophical framework of nursing based on the WHO perspective
of primary health care, and we worked with Dr. Jacqueline Fawcett, who was
the very well-known nurse...—she critiques nursing theory and analyses
nursing theory—so she came and worked with us, here at UPEI, she's based
out of the US and is published widely—so it was very exciting to actually
work with her and then to have our nursing framework of primary health care
published, that was great. And, you know, it was widely useful within the
curriculum too, because it still is the framework for the curriculum,
within the undergraduate program at the School of Nursing, so it's had long
standing—a long standing impact.


Slide - Internationalization - 07:29
At a university wide level, certainly our focus on internalization has been
a really important one and since I came here, there's been tremendous
increases in the numbers of international students who are coming to PEI,
and that's a real strength. There's also been tremendous growth in the
number of opportunities for domestic students to do international
placements and to do semesters in universities in other countries, and I
think that's also a real opportunity—I'd like to see even more growth in
that area—so that's kind of one of the big changes, I think, at the
university-wide level—of course, the student body has grown significantly
over the past 20 years, that's a positive thing as well—but I think the
diversity of the student body and the opportunity for—you know
especially—for Canadian students to do placements in other countries, is
really an advantage, and it's something that my two daughters both
did—they both came to UPEI, studied business, and they both did
international placements while they were in their undergraduate programs;
one went to Finland for a semester; the other went to France and they both
travelled extensively during that time—so, those are, I think that's a
real strength of UPEI.


Slide - Willingness to grow - 09:05 
I was always so impressed with the caliber of people here at UPEI, and it
was really such an honor to meet people across campus in a variety of roles
and functions, and the other thing that always impressed me was people's
ability to come to the table and contribute, so regardless of what I would
ask people to help out with, people always came. You know, the issues and
the projects, and the ideas, come and go—and there's always, always new
opportunities—But I think, what stayed with me was just the strength of
the people here and the caliber of people here, and the willingness to
really, you know, move the university forward was always a strong desire.
And over the years I saw a tremendous growth in the university, and
tremendous increases in how people view the university, and in how, you
know, the community was looking at UPEI too, I saw a lot of pride, and a
lot of...—and I think that was a relatively- I think that was the change
that I saw over the years that I was here; I think people generally in PEI,
and across Canada, came to view UPEI as a place where things were happening
and new initiatives were moving forward.


Slide - Final Thoughts - 10:50 
It's very rewarding to see were former students had their growth and
development in their career progression and the types of positions that
they take on, and you know the value of nurses continues to impress me,
after all these years that I've been on the nursing profession—it never
ceases to amaze me, just about the impact of nurses on the lives of the
individuals that they care for. And you know, we've always said that UPEI
Faculty of Nursing, we've always talked about the importance of primary
health care, community-based practice, health promotion, disease prevention
and you know slowly we are starting to see more focus on that within the
healthcare system, and it's very rewarding to see graduates who are going
to work in community settings and public health settings. And, many of our
graduates work in acute care, where they make tremendous impacts on the
lives of the people that they're looking after, so, I find all of that very
rewarding, just to see where nursing has gone, the value of nursing.
There's also many challenges to face—nurses and nursing—but I really do
believe that our graduates—we are in good hands—with our graduates,
because they have the knowledge and the skills to really move the whole
profession forward. So it's kind of a broad answer, but generally I just
feel a sense of pride in nursing and in our graduates, and I'm very pleased
to see where they go with their careers.