Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Widener U. Honors Graduating Nursing Students with Nightingale Ceremony



Students welcome Emily E. Chambers as the keynote

The Nightingale Ceremony is a traditional pinning ceremony for graduating nursing students, reflecting the values and traditions of the profession.

While holding a lit candle to honor the late Florence Nightingale, who made late night, solitary rounds in a Crimean military hospital to care for wounded soldiers by candlelight, all students will recite the Nightingale Pledge, written by the International Council of Nurses, and vow to uphold the integrity of the profession. The burning candle flame symbolizes the human spirit that is at the core of healing both now and back then.

There will be 112 seniors participating in the ceremony on Friday, May 17 in Alumni Auditorium at 11 a.m. The students will graduate from the School of Nursing at Widener University on Saturday, May 18 on Memorial Field at 9:45 a.m.

Emily E. Chambers will be the keynote speaker at the ceremony this year. Chambers has promoted evidence-based health education for nearly two decades. She encourages a better understanding of nutrition on a global scale.

Chambers received her master’s degree with a focus on maternal and child health from the School of Public Health at Boston University in 2009. She earned her bachelors of English in 2000 from Austin Peay State University. Prior to obtaining her MPH, Chambers served as a health education program officer for the International Development and Relief Board in Khartoum Sudan, where she was contracted by The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to develop a child focused HIV communications strategy. During this time she also developed and taught a low literacy women’s health course. This position led her to work for Samaritan’s Purse International Relief, which is a humanitarian organization that works worldwide to assist people in missionary work. Chamber’s efforts were related to HIV/AIDS projects, before leaving she was the program research associate and continued consulting with the organization while in graduate school.

Chambers currently serves as Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, as well as the co-chair of the Food and Nutrition Technical Working Group for the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) where she coordinated with the Strategic Information department to strengthen the PEPFAR program. Chambers has served in this role since 2011. During this time she has developed rationale for the Efficiencies Project, helped with the financial aspects, and managed country-support teams for 11 countries in South Africa, providing guidance on the application of U.S. global AIDS policies. Implementing such programs has included negotiating between diverse stakeholders within the U.S. government, host country governments, and other donors.

Previously, Chambers served as health coordinator for Medair, an International humanitarian aid agency, in Sudan where she implemented a comprehensive primary health care program with a focus on maternal and child health.

Chambers will address the importance of nutrition as a component of global health.
Chambers has been published in a number of outlets on her research on maternal and child health education issues. Her most recent research has been focused on that of Sudan. She also co-authored the operations and impact evaluations of an unconditional cash transfer scheme in Malawai supported by UNICEF and United States Agency for International Development.

For more information visit, http://www.widener.edu/newsevents/commencement.


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