Dr. Racquel Ingram, founding dean of High Point University’s School of Nursing and chair of the North Carolina Board of Nursing, has been reelected to serve another four-year term on the board.
Physical Therapy Students Serve Patients in Belize.
HIGH POINT, N.C., Oct. 6, 2023 – High Point University students, faculty and staff recently received the following academic and professional awards and recognitions.
HPU Nursing School Dean Reelected to N.C. Board of Nursing
Dr. Racquel Ingram, founding dean of HPU’s School of Nursing and chair of the North Carolina Board of Nursing (NCBON), has been reelected to serve another four-year term on the board.
Ingram’s peers elected her as chair last year based on her leadership, service and other nursing-related experiences and qualifications. She formerly served as the NCBON’s vice chair, was a member of several NCBON committees, assisted with regulatory processes and participated in the development and accomplishment of strategic planning outcomes.
“Knowing that North Carolina nurses and other related officials are counting on me to lead the board is an honor that I don’t take lightly,” said Ingram.
Ingram hopes her nursing students will be inspired by her actions as dean of HPU’s School of Nursing and through her leadership on the NCBON. She also hopes students will be inspired by her School of Nursing colleagues as they model the behaviors of professionalism, excellent practitioners and nurse leaders.
HPU welcomed its second cohort of students this semester to learn inside a 50,000-square-foot nursing complex at HPU’s Parkway Commons. The complex includes a 16-bed skills lab with 14 diverse simulators modeling an acute care environment, as well as three high-fidelity simulation suites – adult health nursing, maternal-newborn nursing and pediatric nursing.
Read more about Ingram’s background in nursing and higher education here and HPU’s School of Nursing here.
HPU Physical Therapy Professor Wins National Honor
Dr. Lance Mabry, an assistant professor of physical therapy in the Congdon School of Health Sciences, won the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) 2023 Federal Government Affairs Leadership Award. This award recognizes the top physical therapist advocate at the national level.
It is the first time anyone from HPU has won this honor, awarded each year to one of approximately 250,000 physical therapists.
APTA’s Federal Government Affairs Leadership Award is presented to an APTA member who has made significant contributions to federal government affairs efforts and has shown exemplary leadership in furthering the association’s objectives. Criteria for the award includes establishing professional relationships with members of Congress and assisting other APTA members to become more effective advocates for the physical therapy profession.
Award recipients will be recognized July 21, 2024, in conjunction with the 2024 APTA Leadership Congress in Kansas City, Missouri.
“I believe this award validates the efforts of our HPU physical therapy students to advance the physical therapy profession to improve the lives of both our clinicians and our patients,” said Mabry.
As the third physical therapy faculty member to receive national APTA recognition, Mabry said he thinks it reinforces HPU’s dedication to academic excellence by offering learning experiences beyond the boundaries of classroom walls.
“Students were involved in most of the advocacy activities that ultimately led to this award,” said Mabry.
HPU physical therapy students marched on the North Carolina General Assembly in 2019 in support of physical therapist spinal manipulation, which was ultimately signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper. They also marched on the Capitol in Washington, D.C., as part of APTA Advocacy Day 2023.
“At High Point University, we aren’t just educating the clinicians of tomorrow,” said Mabry. “We are developing the mindset and life skills that will shape these students into pillars of their community.”
HPU physical therapy students conducted multiple Congressional tours of Congdon Hall and the Pro Bono Physical Therapy Clinic, including for U.S. Sen. Ted Budd and Rep. Kathy Manning.
“At a time of great division within our nation, our students are taught to embrace bipartisanship by focusing on solutions where there is agreement between both Republicans and Democrats,” said Mabry. “The efforts of HPU physical therapy students have successfully contributed to legislation passed at both the state and national level.”
HPU Physical Therapy Students Serve Patients in Belize
Nine students and two professors from HPU’s Department of Physical Therapy traveled to San Ignacio, Belize, to provide physical therapy services to the community, which is served by only two doctors of physical therapy.
Dr. Kevin Ford, dean of Congdon School of Health Sciences, and Dr. Rebecca Medendorp, assistant professor of physical therapy and director of clinical education, traveled with the physical therapy students who were exposed to a blend of multiple cultures and honed their clinical skills.
“The trip was important for students because it not only gave them hands-on experience treating patients, but it also worked on their creativity in making treatments and setting up a clinic with very little equipment,” said Medendorp. “The trip broadened their cultural and medical horizons, exposing them to a country that has a melting pot of cultures and languages. It helps make the students be a more informed clinician and health care advocate when they have a better depth of knowledge of not only the U.S. health care system but also other health care systems and how they operate similarly, differently, what works well and we could work to emulate, and what doesn’t work well, and we can learn from their mistakes.”
Adam Nunez, a physical therapy student from Dallas, Texas, who will graduate in 2025, was part of the group of nine students who traveled to San Ignacio during the two-week break between their spring and summer semesters.
“It truly was an unbelievable experience being able to treat such a wide range of orthopedic, neurologic, pediatric and geriatric patients at both a local senior living center and a pop-up community clinic,” said Nunez. “The opportunity to implement our didactic skills on patients who have never had access to physical therapy care before has imparted valuable knowledge and experience to which we will apply in our future careers. Witnessing the need there, immersing ourselves in the culture and playing such an impactful role in improving the quality of life for our patients was extremely rewarding for all of us.”
Sarah Austin, a physical therapy student from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who will graduate in 2024, agreed the service trip to Belize was a fantastic experience. The physical therapy students were welcomed at the airport with a homemade meal and had traditional Belizean meals during the trip.
“Over the course of the week, we saw a variety of patients and conditions from pediatric neurological conditions to adult orthopedic conditions,” Austin said. “We learned how to be creative in treatment with limited equipment compared to what we are used to in the United States. This challenged our clinical reasoning as future physical therapists to maximize the benefit for our patients. This trip reminded me that the patients are the reason I chose this profession, and I am glad to have taken this opportunity to increase my knowledge of treatment across the lifespan.”
HPU History Professor and Alumnae Publish Works
The research of HPU history instructor Dr. Michael Kennedy and alumnae Mary Purcell and Maeve O’Dea was recently published in “The Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians,” combined volumes 30 and 31.
Kennedy’s paper is titled, “After Jackie Robinson: The Strategy of Procrastination: Delays to the Integration of Major League Baseball, 1947-1959.” Jayne Eaves, ’23, served as Kennedy’s research assistant during her senior year and is now pursuing her master of arts at Queen’s University in Belfast.
O’Dea, ’23, published “An Enduring Balance of Power in Nineteenth Century Europe,” which was based on her senior seminar paper written with guidance from Dr. Andrew Tzavaras, instructor of history and secondary history program coordinator. She presented a shorter version at the 2023 North Carolina Association of Historians (NCAH) conference and won the Midgette Prize for best student paper. O’Dea is currently teaching history and civics at Northern Guilford High School in Greensboro.
Purcell, ‘21, wrote “The Merry Dance of Death and Trade: Representations of British Imperialism in Victorian Fiction” for her history class, Victoria’s Britain and Empire. She later expanded it into her senior seminar paper with mentorship from Dr. Amanda Allen, assistant professor of history. Purcell presented a shorter version of this paper at the 2022 NCAH conference and received the Midgette Prize for best student paper. Purcell is currently in her second year pursuing an M.A. in history at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
“We are very proud of the strong scholarship produced in our department and the reputation it is building in the larger field,” said Allen. “It is quite an accomplishment for history undergraduates to both present at conferences and publish in journals, which is a testament to the strength of our students and department. Our history majors learn not just about history but how to be historians, and we know they will continue to accomplish great things after graduation.”