High Paying Career Opportunities through Goodman South Campus: Meaningful Well-Paying Jobs
From left to right: Alejandra Bridges, bilingual (Spanish/English) Financial Aid & Student Support; Leah Narans MBA, MLS (ASCP), program director/faculty for Health Programs; Loise Kirore, RN, BSN, WCC, nursing assistant instructor, School of Nursing; Lisa Cappelli, RN MS, faculty lead for Equity and Inclusion, School of Nursing and Valentina Ahedo, VP, Goodman South Campus & School of Academic Advancement
Part 2 of 2
By Jonathan Gramling
While Madison College is committed to providing a quality education for all, their mission doesn’t end there. They are committed to making sure that students succeed at the college and later in their careers that earn family-sustaining wages and perhaps provide meaning to their lives. While it is important to the staff that students come to the college, it is more important to them that students leave for those quality careers.
Madison College’s Goodman South Campus is located at one of Madison’s gateway’s on S. Park Street. It also serves as a gateway to one of the nation’s fastest-growing career fields, the health care profession with careers that pay far above fast food worker jobs with only a six-month to two-year educational commitment, not a bad payoff.
In talking with instructors and staff at Madison College’s nursing program at Goodman South, it is very apparent that the concern and care that led them to the profession carries over to their relationships with students.
“All of our programs will support you once you graduate from our program into the next level,” said Leah Narans MBA, MLS (ASCP), program director/faculty for Health Programs. “I support many people into the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate levels. I know nursing does. We all do. It’s an investment and we love watching our students climb. I love it. There is nothing better than for me to see a student bypass me on education. I love it.”
When students come to Goodman South, they aren’t coming to a distant, cold building. They are coming to an educational center that was built with their needs in mind, a place they want to be a part of.
“One of the most brilliant things about our college, but this campus in particular, is the relationships that are built with students,” said Lisa Cappelli, RN MS, faculty lead for Equity and Inclusion, School of Nursing. “I’ve been coming to this campus for about two years and it is stunning to see the way students are received, the sense of belonging that they feel the moment they walk into this building. I feel really strongly it is one of the keys to someone completing a successful education at our college. They come in and see Tina who is very visible here. They see Alejandra. They are known and they know the students. There are the people at the Welcome Desk. When I see my students come in here, they feel a sense that they belong here.”
It’s all about the students with faculty and staff going that extra mile to ensure that students succeed.
“I spent time this afternoon with three students on their scholarship applications because the deadline is Thursday in terms of what to write and how to word it,” Cappelli said. “We have this thing called the ‘iceberg effect.’ There is what we see on top and then what is below the water line. I talk to faculty about this all the time, particularly in relationship to our students who are coming from diverse backgrounds. Knowing someone’s story is so inherently important to us in helping us support their success. That’s what equity means. We’re giving each student as individuals everything they need to succeed. This student is filling out the application and I am reading it. This student has experienced homelessness at some point. They have a family and their goal and aspiration for becoming a nurse is so that they can teach their children a different way of life so that their children don’t have to experience what they have experienced. That’s powerful.”
It is important to the faculty to live the values that they want their students to live by in the nursing profession.
“I think what students when they come in and come to our classrooms say that they do expect that because that is what we have said,” said Loise Kirore, RN, BSN, WCC, nursing assistant instructor, School of Nursing about being there for students. “This is what we agree to do and we follow up. You have students ask you questions like, ‘They told me about FAFSA. What is that?’ Today, I had a student ask me if it was a grant. I said, ‘Maybe we need to talk with someone. Let’s talk after class,’ Students will tell you, ‘You’ve been my instructor for the last seven weeks. Which route do you think I should follow? Should I do the LPN or the ADN?’ They trust that you will be there to support them.’ After giving them information and asking them questions, I let them decide. Or I will have an expert come in and talk with them. The teacher-student relationship is very important. I feel this is where we actually get to impart to them the kind of a nurse or a doctor we want them to be. If we are going to model behavior, it had better be the behavior that we want them to model when they go into practice. As faculty, we take that very seriously. We want to model the behavior that we want them to have once they graduate from our college.”
Nursing is not a one-size-fits-all profession. There are different careers that require different skill sets and have different features that allow the student to find the career that best fits them.
“Nursing is a vigorous program at every level,” Cappelli said. “When you are looking at the registered nurse level and associate degree level, it is a rigorous program. People who are smart get through that program. We ask our students when they come to orientation, we show them a thing called, ‘What Is Your Why?’ When they know what their why is, they can drive towards purpose. ‘Why do you want to be a nurse?’ Inevitably, more than 90 percent of the people say they want to be a nurse because they want to help people. For me, that is the essential ingredient.
And while providing service to people and the community, the nurses are compensated well for the care they provide. Entry-level wages for licensed practical nurses is around $52,000 while that of registered nurse is $72,800.
Becoming a nursing assistant is often a stepping stone for people entering the health care field.
“Some people work as nursing assistants to pay their way through school,” Kirore said. “For others, it is also an experience because we think the best nurses are the ones who have been nursing assistants. They experience what nursing assistants do. And I feel then when they are nurses, they are able to supervise and delegate to those individuals in a proper way.”
Nursing assistant is also a gateway to health care professions where people get a full view of the different professions and can use that experience in choosing a career.
“Nursing assistant is also a requirement even for people who are becoming physicians,” Kirore said. “We are a gateway to all these health care providers. And I feel like as nurses, most of us are very caring. We love people. And we can impact that passion into them no matter what they are going to do, whether they are going to be physicians or physician’s assistants. But it is also an entry point whereby even those people who aren’t sure what area of health care is for them, they can become nursing assistants and will work with other health care members, whether that is a physical therapist, dietician or speech therapist. They are shadowing all of these people. Many of them are going, ‘Maybe not nursing, but maybe I want to be a physical therapist or dietician.’ So they have a variety of things that they can shadow and be able to look at that and go, ‘Okay, maybe this will be more for me.’”
Entry-level wages for nursing assistants range from $35,360 to $39,520 annually.
And for those who enjoy the science and want to have an impact on people’s lives, but are uncomfortable with the up close and personal, there are the laboratory technician and phlebotomist jobs.
“We are where the science and the medicine meet,” Narans said. “We make 70 percent of all diagnoses, which come from lab results. But you aren’t really seeing those patients. You’re not at the bedside. You’re not holding their hands. You’re not dealing with families. You’re not doing that patient care. But you are making a major impact on their wellbeing and their treatment. So we always get a lot of people who really want to be involved in health care, but just don’t do well with people. As long as they get along with each other, that’s all we really worry about. As I am working through and doing the education, I’m also educating them and training them on getting along with others. We really push the soft skills to make sure that they can do that. But they really don’t have to do that patient hands-on care. This is a great field. There is 100 percent job placement and passing the boards through our program. It’s a great place to start your career as a phlebotomist and work your way all the way up to a doctorate. We have doctorate levels now. And once you get that first semester of phlebotomy, you can get it paid for with tuition reimbursement.”
Starting annual salaries average around $39,520 and medical laboratory technicians can earn $47,840.
And for those for whom the starting salaries and the caring nature of the work is not enough, remember that health care workers are in demand everywhere. One can mold the work to suit one’s personal circumstances.
“One of the things that is really amazing about nursing is the flexibility of working full-time, working part-time or only working weekends,” Cappelli said. “There are opportunities for those within our field, particularly with nursing. And I think that is attractive for many of our students who are parents. That piece that is around, ‘I am taking care of family’ is different. I think we do an amazing job of offering to them that this is a career path where you can work in a variety of settings as well as a variety of different shifts and things of that nature.”
Nursing is the career for you.
