Ombudsman and the Student Representative

We have 3 candidates for 2 (technically 3) positions. Polls will be open until January 25th. These individuals submitted their name for the following:

Student Representative to the Faculty
Duties are to attend Faculty/partner Facility Meetings, take notes, and report back to the cohort. According to the last cohort, these meetings happen Quarterly (about 7-8 times over our program). However, Melissa said meetings will be monthly.

We also need an Alternate Student Rep to step in when the other is not available

Candidates (Top Vote gets the Position, Second gets the Alternate Position):

Bruce Gittings: "...I am very interested in being the person who attends the faculty meetings. My primary reason is that my career goal is to become a university-based nurse educator as soon as I've accumulated sufficient clinical experience. Watching the inner workings of the faculty meetings might help strengthen or reduce my enthusiasm for that path." See Below for More Information
Cheryl Bingaman: Cheryl is interested in being involved with the faculty and the cohort...A paragraph from her is coming


Ombudsman:
The ombudsman is our cohorts' liaison with Melissa, who is responsible for taking issues and questions to her and relaying that information back in a timely fashion.

Candidates:

Cheryl Bingaman: Cheryl is interested in being involved with the faculty and the cohort...A paragraph from her is coming
Branden Nelson: Besides the name Ombudsman sounding pretty sweet, I would like to help out where I can. I can relay and summarize information well and look forward to working with each of you and our faculty. Part of my desire to serve in the role is to develop resources for our cohort and the next generations of cohort. Perhaps as result of this position, I could work with Melissa to develop processes to accumulate and disseminate information for our benefit and that of students to come. For instance, I would like to use this blog, in part, as a Q&A forum for all of our benefit.


More on Bruce for Student Representative:

I've long had an interest in education and have several times considered becoming a teacher. One factor in my decision to become a nurse and specifically to apply to the DEMSN program was the potential to one day perhaps become a nurse educator. I would, therefore, consider it a valuable addition to my education to be able to peek inside the inner workings of the department at their faculty meetings

Like everybody, I'm also very interested both in getting the best education that I can and seeing the SSU DEMSN program get better and better. I'd therefore be excited to be able to provide a student's perspective to the faculty at their meetings.

The degree to which this role is interactive at the meetings is not clear. If appropriate, I am quite comfortable candidly sharing my views and those of others. Likewise, I can be a good listener and simply document what's taking place.

For several years I served as a secretary to a locally elected board of directors. In that capacity I took detailed meeting minutes for public distribution within the community. I am an excellent typist and an expert user of various documentation software. To the degree supported by the faculty, I would commit to posting appropriate meeting minutes to the DEMSN blog or Blackboard site within 24 hours of the meeting. I would also post PDF documents which could be downloaded for later review.

If appointed to this role, I will do my best to exceed the expectations of all concerned, both my classmates and the faculty with whom I'd be interacting.