Leadership, as featured in our 2008 Hartford Annual Report, is defined by four key elements: Formal Training, Mentoring, Peer Networking, and Answering the Call. Leaders rarely rise spontaneously from within the ranks of health professionals and often need special training, nurturing, and support. Even though leadership often seems to emerge from nowhere, it is almost always the product of years of work.

Consistent with this, our Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Initiative (BAGNC), now over 200 scholars and fellows strong, is designed to grow gero-expert nurse leaders who can prepare all nurses to be competent to care for older adults.

We know we have helped nurture a cadre of terrific nurse leaders, and we can’t help but be overjoyed when other organizations recognize the outstanding leadership skills of our BAGNC scholars, fellows, and alumni. Please join us in congratulating these six BAGNC nurses chosen for the Atlantic Philanthropies Health and Aging Policy Fellows and the Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Faculty Scholars.

The Atlantic Philanthropies Health and Aging Policy Fellows
BAGNC alumnae Adriana Perez, PhD, ANP and Tracie Harrison, PhD, were two of the nine selected in the most recent cohort of the Health and Aging Policy Fellows. This 9-to-12-month program provides fellows with the experience and skills necessary to make a positive contribution to the development and implementation of health policies that affect older Americans.

Dr. Perez, a 2009-2011 John A. Hartford Foundation Claire M. Fagin Postdoctoral Fellow at Arizona State University, will be working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her program of research focuses on cardiovascular health promotion among older diverse populations. She has developed and tested a motivational intervention to promote physical activity among older Hispanic women in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Dr. Harrison, an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and alumna of the BAGNC pre and post-doctoral programs, will work with the Administration on Aging. Her policy interests surround the federal and state laws that affect the long-term health-related benefits of women aging with disabilities, which include worker’s compensation, Medicare, and Medicaid-related legislation.

Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Faculty Scholars
All we can say here is, wow! Four of the twelve outstanding nursing faculty from across the country who were selected to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s prestigious Nurse Faculty Scholars program are BAGNC champions. The goal of the RWJ Nurse Faculty Program is to develop the next generation of national leaders in academic nursing through career development awards for outstanding junior nursing faculty. The program aims to strengthen the academic productivity and overall excellence of nursing schools by providing mentorship, leadership training, and salary and research support to young faculty.

BAGNC leaders in this fourth cohort of RWJ Nurse Faculty Scholars include:

  • Anna Beeber, PhD, RN, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Developing Best Nursing Practices in Assisted Living
  • Jennifer Bellot, PhD, RN, MHSA, Thomas Jefferson University, Painting a Portrait of Utilization and Integration: Medicare and Nurse Managed Centers
  • Elena Siegel, PhD, RN, University of California, Davis, Leadership Support for Quality Improvement in Nursing Homes
  • Sarah Szanton, PhD, CRNP, Johns Hopkins University, Bio-Behavioral Mediators of Enhanced Daily Function in Disabled Low-Income Older Adults

We at Hartford could not be more proud. Our nurse leaders are pursuing opportunities to enhance their leadership skills to ultimately improve the health of older adults. Robert Jarvik, MD, inventor of the first permanent artificial heart, once said, “Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.” Here’s to our BAGNC leaders and their poorly developed sense of fear. As a result, we expect great things.