On Saturday, December 12, Concordia University Ann Arbor School of Nursing celebrated the Pinning Ceremony for the Zeta Class, the fifth cohort to graduate from CUAA's school of nursing.
The Zeta Class pinning ceremony was originally planned to be celebrated in person with a socially-distant ceremony in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, but was shifted to a virtual format when the stay-at-home restrictions were extended earlier in the week.
Each semester, Concordia’s nursing faculty and staff nominate students from the graduating cohort who best represent the core values of the nursing program: service, excellence, compassion, and integrity. An additional award, the Nightingale Award, was created as a tribute to Florence Nightingale who embodied nursing as her life’s vocation. The recipient of this award exemplifies that same character and calling.
View all of the Zeta class award recipients.
Integrity Award: Brooke Opland (’20)
Presented by Peggy McLaughlin
The award I am giving today is for a student who exemplifies integrity. Integrity is of our program’s cornerstone virtues, and is defined as soundness of moral character, and adherence to ethical principles. In the Bible, the Book of Proverbs mentions integrity: “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.” (Proverbs, 10:9, GNB) and, “If you are good, you are guided by honesty. People who can’t be trusted are destroyed by their own dishonesty.” (Proverbs, 11:3, GNB). From the Biblical standpoint, integrity is associated with unfailing transparency and honesty. For Concordia nursing, integrity means doing the right thing even when it goes unnoticed, and is an attribute of the very best nurses.
And so, we expect Concordia nurses to display aspects of integrity: not to grandstand, and to be decent, fair and honest. One student, though, consistently goes above and beyond those basic rules of integrity. She is attentive and attuned to those in our Concordia University. This student’s integrity drives her to be at her very best, all the time, even when she’d probably rather be doing something else. She’s got grit: in research class, she was invariably good-natured when facing a barrage of new terminology, statistics, and everyone’s new best friend, APA style. She can be counted on to say what she means and mean what she says—no small feat given competing priorities of school, clinical, work, volunteering, and family. The Integrity award goes to a student who can be trusted to provide care with alacrity and integrity: Brooke Opland.
Previous Integrity Awardees:
Lillian Thompson (Omega class, Spring 2020)
Susan Sielicki (Delta class, Fall 2019)
Paula Bobosky (Beta class, Spring 2019)
Turome “Tea” Chandler (Alpha class, Fall 2018)
Learn more about Concordia’s School of Nursing.
— Rachel Thoms served on Concordia University's Strategic Communications team from 2015-2022. Any inquiries about this story can be sent to news@cuaa.edu.
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