草榴社区

2011 CASE PROFESSOR OF THE YEAR

Dr. Patricia Harrington

Bio – Narrative:

Patricia Harrington arrived at the 草榴社区 in 1984 after teaching Nursing at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York and working as a staff nurse at Maimonides Medical Center.  She holds a Diploma in nursing from Kings County Hospital Center and a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Medgar Evers College, City University of New York (CUNY).  She completed her master of science in nursing at Hunter Bellevue – School of Nursing (CUNY) and master’s and doctoral degrees in Nursing Education from Teachers College – Columbia University in New York City.

Dr. Harrington has taught courses across the nursing curriculum including Introduction to Nursing, Pathophysiology, Fundamental Skills, Medical-Surgical, and Maternity Nursing, and teaches one of the Nurse Educator courses in the graduate program.  In addition she collaborates with Dr. Michael Sulzinski of the Biology Department to offer an interdisciplinary course:  HIV/AIDS:  Biological, Social, and Cultural Issues, a course developed in response to the devastating AIDS epidemic, and offered to all majors.

Always a strong advocate of vulnerable populations, she worked in collaboration with the Student Affairs staff to promote student involvement in social justice issues.  To that end she was a founding member of the AIDS Awareness committee, and provided education about the epidemic to members of the University community including the training of HIV Peer Educators.  Additionally she was a founding member of the Education for Justice Task Force and Advisory Committee (2003-2010).

Early in her career she received several grants to implement technology and service-learning in nursing classes.  She collaborated with two nursing faculty to author an article and a book about Integrating Service-Learning into the nursing curriculum, which highlight ways to establish community-university partnerships in service to others.

Locally she serves as a member and former co-chair of the Northeastern Pennsylvania HIV/AIDS Coalition, providing support to people living with HIV and AIDS in a six county region.  For many years she led faculty and students in partnership with the American Red Cross to offer HIV Prevention outreach to vulnerable women living in public housing.

In keeping with her concern for the poor and marginalized, she was invited to serve as a consultant for a grant to train nurses in HIV care and counseling in Kenya.   This was part of a Marquette University, Department of Nursing/USAID (United States Agency for International Development) grant.  The four-year “AIDS in Africa Project” resulted in a computer-based curriculum for a “train-the-trainer” program adopted by the Nurses Association in Kenya, to train nurses in AIDS care and counseling.

Dr. Harrington has served in leadership roles in Nursing including five years as the American Nurses Association liaison to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) program on blood resources (NBREP); two years as vice president for the Pennsylvania Higher Education in Nursing Schools Association (PHENSA); and ten years as the treasurer for the Jesuit Conference of Nursing Programs (JCNP).

Honors and awards include honorary membership in the Jesuit Honor Society (2004); recognition for “Outstanding Efforts in HIV Prevention” (2003) from the American Red Cross (2003); and the “Malcolm X Award for Clinical Nursing ” from Medgar Evers College (1981).

She facilitated and co led a group of nursing students on the department’s first international nursing mission to Haiti in January 2008.  During their week of service, the students and faculty assisted staff from “Hope for Haiti” to provide clinics in orphanages and churches, worked with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity and visited a children’s hospital in Port au Prince. Students described the mission trip as “life changing”. 

She resides in Greentown with her Husband Jim.  They have four children and seven grandchildren.

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