UMich School of Nursing: DirectLine

DirectLine Errata

Correction to Issue 1, Volume 1, November, 2006.

The Dean for the School of Nursing in Haiti is Dean Hilda Alcindor, RN.

In 2001, shortly after she retired from the School of Nursing Division 1 faculty, Ruth Barnard, PhD, RN, was asked by her church, First Presbyterian of Ann Arbor, and by Dr. Jack Lafontant, Directeur Général of Hôpital Ste. Croix in Léogâne, Haïti, to lead the effort to start a school of Nursing in Léogâne, Haïti. She recruited others to work on the project, including Dr. Donna Steele Martsolf (a graduate of the University of Michigan undergraduate program) and Dr. Jessie Colin, the first Haitian-American

nurse to receive a PhD. Out of this came Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de l'Université Episcopale d'Haïti (FSIL), the first baccalaureate nursing school in Haïti. The school features six classrooms, including 2 clinical skills labs and 1 computer lab, cafeteria, library, restrooms, three offices and an 8-bedroom dormitory. The money for the buildings came through the Medical Benevolence Foundation from the USAID/ASHA program. Besides serving as Treasurer on the School's Governing Board, Ruth is the organizing President of the Haiti Nursing Foundation, a charitable non-profit organization to support and advance nursing in the Republic of Haiti . Another alumna of the U-M School of Nursing, Margie Van Meter, MS, RN, has been active with the school development and serves as Secretary to

both the School Governing Board and the Haiti Nursing Foundation. The FSIL school opened in January 2005 and has over 80 students in its first three years of the 4-year program. The Doyenne (Dean) of the school is Hilda Alcindor, RN, who was educated in Haiti , then spent 30 years working in the U.S. She was recruited to return to Haiti as Dean of the School. The school is very successful. See < http://www.haitinursing.org/ >.