A hearty congratulations to the 17 Pace students who were selected for the prestigious and highly competitive United Nations Academic Impact and MCN Millennium Fellowship. Lubin students Angelina Bellucci and Nikol Taba Montoya joined over 3,000 peers from 200+ campuses worldwide as they pursued semester-long social impact projects related directly to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A record 31,397 students from across the globe applied and only 8% were accepted! Millennium Fellows receive world class professional development and access to incredible connections. See more at the Millennium Fellowship website.

This summer Nurses Educational Funds, Inc. (NEF) awarded a total of 32 graduate nursing scholarships to nurses attending 21 different graduate nursing programs across the United States.

Two Pace University Lienhard School of Nursing (LSN) graduate students, Audrey Arcari and Meredith Sheeha, received NEF Scholarships for 2022–2023.

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Audrey is currently enrolled in the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) program at Pace's College of Health Professions, where she also received her undergraduate bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Throughout the pandemic, Audrey noticed the high utilization of emergency departments for primary care along with the health disparities in the LGBTQIA community. She decided to enroll in an FNP program to be a champion of primary care and promote competent care to those with disabilities.

Audrey is also a certified emergency nurse and encourages excellence in her field by precepting nurses into new roles. She became a sexual assault forensic examiner to learn more about the process in which victims are treated at the hospital and to serve as an advocate for those who have experienced emotional and physical trauma. Because positivity and kindness are two of her most important values, she started a Peer Shout-Out committee in her workplace to provide employees in the emergency department individual recognition by their peers for their outstanding patient care performances.

Meredith is also in the FNP program at Pace. She has worked as an inpatient oncology nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering and as a home care nurse for the Visiting Nurse Service of New York assisting patients with chronic illnesses and recent hospitalizations to manage their health at home. She also volunteered for the Friends of Nurse Family Partnership, an organization that provides home care for first-time, low-income mothers. Particularly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, this work helped paint a fuller picture of the healthcare system for Meredith and confirmed her desire to work in primary care.

As a nurse practitioner, Meredith hopes to perpetuate the positive experiences she’s had in her undergraduate, graduate, and professional education through clinical and laboratory teaching. She is grateful to all the preceptors, educators, colleagues, and nurse leaders who have helped her in her career thus far and is especially thankful to the Nurses Educational Funds for making her goal of becoming a family nurse practitioner attainable.

Nurses Educational Funds, Inc., (NEF) is one of the largest non-profit professionally endorsed sources of scholarships for graduate nursing master’s and doctorate degree study in the United States. It depends solely on donations to advance its mission of promoting leadership through scholarship support. This is done for professional nurses seeking masters and doctorate degrees in nursing education, practice, research, administration, and health policy.

The need for nurse leaders in the United States is more critical than ever. NEF funded scholars have become outstanding faculty and deans of schools of nursing, renowned researchers, and expert administrators – all leading change in every arena across the country and globally. Since NEF’s inception in 1912, over 1,300 nurses throughout the United States have received NEF scholarships.

You can read the full biographies of all 32 Scholarship recipients for the 2022–2023 academic year on the NEF website.

The annual NEF Scholarship online application process opens October 1, 2022 and closes February 1, 2023. If you are interested in applying for a graduate nursing scholarship, please visit the NEF website application page. All the eligibility requirements for receiving a scholarship are published there.

Marketing and publishing executive-turned author Ebony Ladelle '10, MS Publishing, writes about the universal language of love.

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Recently, you were marketing director of brand publishing at Penguin House, and have since transitioned to full-time author, with your first book, Love Radio, released in May 2022.

Tell us more about the central theme of this book and what inspired you to write it.

The book is about two teens, Dani Ford, an aspiring writer whose sole focus is to move to New York to pursue her dreams, and Prince Jones, a local Detroit DJ who gives love advice on the airways and is also looking to pursue Dani. After they finally cross paths at the Detroit Public Library, Prince convinces Dani to go on three dates in order to fall for him, and sparks fly. However, as a lot of my readers have put it, Love Radio is also a story of love for community, family, your hometown, and yourself.

Love Radio has been featured on the Today Show; was reviewed by The New York Times, and included on lists such as People magazine’s Best Books of the Summer (online and print edition); Apple's Best Books of 2022; and Amazon's Best Young Adult Books of the Month. You also authored an article in Cosmopolitan about your inspiration for writing it.

What are your thoughts about this book’s contribution to the current young adult fiction genre? What would you like readers to take away?

I hope this book’s contribution is a positive representation of Black teenage life. I was born and raised in the metro area of Detroit, a predominately Black city, and stayed there most of my childhood. Many of the teen romance books I had read and movies I had seen were never directed at me—girls like me never got to be swept off our feet. So, with Love Radio, my hope is that every reader will come to this book because they love love. Love is a universal language, and I think it’s equally important to show how people give and receive love in different ways. My hope is that readers will get into Love Radio and appreciate it from that lens.

What was it like writing a book and being a full-time career professional?

I wrote Love Radio when I was working as a marketing director at HarperCollins and began promoting it when I switched jobs and began working at Penguin Random House. It was interesting, because in 2019, I would get up super early and write before I went to work. Then, Covid happened, and I was able to work remotely, so I would get up at the same time I did pre-pandemic and use my commute time to write instead of sleeping in a little later. It’s absolutely how I was able to finish this book, and I’m thankful I made the most use of that time.

Promoting Love Radio in the beginning was manageable because many of my events were virtual and I was able to schedule them before or after work or during lunch. However, once the world opened back up and I began to travel for in-person events, I realized the pressures of both the job and traveling were too much for me, and I decided to take a sabbatical, of sorts, and use the time to focus on my writing career. I hope to get back into publishing one day, but I’m also very thankful I have this time to be present for my debut year.

What attracted you to pursue the MS in Publishing at Pace University?

I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Howard University in Washington, DC, during a recession, and had a hard time getting call backs for publishing jobs, so I began to research graduate programs that could help me move to New York City, gain more industry knowledge, and, ultimately, start a career in book publishing. I found Pace during my research, and, after I applied, was accepted with a scholarship and financial aid. This was key, since financial constraints were an issue for me, and I was unable to move to the city on my own.

Were there certain faculty members who were instrumental in your academic journey?

Yes, I remember having Professor Manuela Soares teach one of my classes and how invaluable her knowledge was. Before I graduated, I told her I hope she becomes [head of] the Publishing program someday, so it’s wonderful to see that it actually happened!

How has your graduate degree in Publishing prepared you for your professional life?

It prepared me in many ways. It provided me with a network of young publishing professionals such as myself who were able to look out for one another and help each other land jobs in different publishing houses (since getting a job in publishing in a lot of ways is about who you know). It also taught me the basics of the bookmaking process, which helped me be more confident in the job once I started working.

The [MS in Publishing program] provided me with a network of young publishing professionals such as myself who were able to look out for one another and help each other.

As you look back at your time as a Dyson student, how did it influence you to become the person you are today?

Being able to attend a college in New York City completely changed my life. The location is so diverse, and so I was able to make friends with students from all over the US and the world, friends who are still a part of my life to this day. To me, that is invaluable.

What do you love about New York City and being a writer in this town?

Although I recently moved back to DC, what I did love about living in Brooklyn and New York City, in general, was the access to so many literary events, the plethora of food spots to choose from, the concerts, and just the culture of New York City. I loved every bit of my time here and what I learned working in publishing.

What advice would you give to our students, as they navigate their undergraduate and/or graduate academic life?

Take each and every one of your classmates seriously and network with them, because they might be the person that can help you get a job later down the road.