Learning by Doing-And Doing a Lot
Winners to receive the 1999 Co-op Awards.
By Deborah Klenotic
Their résumés carry lines like "Clinical
assistant, Cardiac Intensive Care Unit" and "Participated in
on-site interviews at educational institutions under investigation."
They by and large return phone calls promptly. They speak to an interviewer
with sometimes startling ease and the key to laughter always in the ignition.
They are some of the twenty seniors who, after the 1999 Co-op Awards
Ceremony in June, will add "Co-op Award" to their résumés-if
they can find someplace to squeeze it in.
These students' co-op records show that over the years they have "performed
above and beyond," says Jacqueline Diani, awards committee chair.
Co-op coordinators nominated forty-nine students on the basis of their
résumés, their coordinators' and employers' evaluations,
and any unsolicited material from employers. "The winners showed a
high level of ability and a lot of initiative," says Diani.
Among these young titans is nursing student Michael Greenlee, a clinical
assistant in the Cardiac ICU at Children's Hospital in Boston, who will
receive the McMahon Award for commitment to human services. Picture him
as one of the throng of gowned health care professionals around a hospital
bed in the emergency room. In the bed is an infant or toddler, or even
a newborn, who has arrived at the ICU directly from heart surgery. Greenlee
sets up intravenous fluids and intracardiac lines, takes as many measurements
as there are body parts, it seems, and may race to the pharmacy in between.
"I was thrown back at first," says Greenlee. "I'd worked
with adults before. Seeing these little kids-two-kilogram babies can have
open-heart surgery-I would stand back; I was so afraid of hurting them."
A little over a year later, Greenlee can say, "I find it the most
exciting part of the day, when a baby comes up from the OR. A lot can happen;
the baby can crash; it's a very fragile point." In the frenzy, Greenlee
is composed enough to apply ten sticker leads to an infant's chest and
limbs and hook him or her up to the monitor to obtain an EKG. "The
child has to be kept still. It can be tough," he admits. He's reached
the point where he can say "Okay, stop now" to the other professionals
around the bed so that he can get the EKG.
Greenlee says he was surprised to win the co-op award. He credits it
to "some letters from a few families, I guess. And my nurse manager
wrote a letter to my coordinator about how I dealt with kids"-an example
being Weston, a redheaded three-year-old who stayed in the ICU for three
weeks, waiting for a new heart. "To give his mom a break, I said I'd
play with him. On the day of his surgery, Weston's mom asked me to go with
him into the OR. When we got there, I pointed out to Weston that it looked
like a PlayStation. He was surrounded by health care workers, all of them
in blue. I knew blue was his favorite color, so I said, 'Look, Weston!
Everyone wore blue for you!' "
In Sheri Cardoza's last co-op, which she describes as "definitely"
her best, she worked in the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil
Rights (OCR), where she faced people who wanted to get their hands on files
about educational institutions that had been charged with civil rights
violations. "Anyone could write in and ask for the information in
our files," she explains-the schools themselves, the complainants,
the media. Cardoza saw to it that no identifying information, such as complainants'
or witnesses' names, social security numbers, or medical information, went
out in the paperwork, whether it was one page or a thousand.
She was even on the "proactive team" that assembled data on
the five schools in the region-"Northeastern was on the list!"
she notes-that the National Women's Law Center included in a lawsuit against
twenty-five schools for disparity in Title IX enforcement. Cardoza is perhaps
most proud of visits she made with her team to two middle schools, where
she interviewed teachers about the higher proportions of minority students
in lower academic tracks. "But it was all great," she says of
her experience at the OCR. "They included me and really let me do
work there."
Receiving the Pratt Award for showing extraordinary growth through co-op
is Danny Gao, who also can't complain of not being given real work. "Before
my first co-op, I didn't know anything about computers," says Gao.
"Now I can go into a store and build my own."
Arriving at Harvard Business School Publishing a computer neophyte,
he left there well on his way to geek chic, having worked as one of five
staff providing daily technical support to 250 computer users.
"Before I started at Harvard, I didn't know much about hardware
and software," says Gao. "I started from nothing." After
answering hundreds of calls to the hot line phone-such as "The printer's
not working!" or "I was supposed to get an e-mail and it never
came!"-he was solving most of the problems himself.
"I can't do everything I had to tell them sometimes," Gao
says with a laugh. "I loved it. I met a lot of people and learned
a lot."
Callers seeking help from the Massachusetts Poison Control Center may
hear the voice of pharmacy student Jennifer Berard, who's also had hot
line experience as part of her co-op. On a busy night, about twenty calls
come in, from people concerned about a rash that appeared while they were
at work, people who fear they have food poisoning, even people who are
anxious because their dog drank out of the toilet when a "2000 Flush"
cleaner was in it.
There are often calls from parents frantic after a child has swallowed
something-usually an overdose of a children's medicine, many of which are
appealingly sweet. "First we ask, 'How many pills did they have access
to?' " explains Berard, in easy command of her subject. "Then,
'What does the child weigh?' " She then calculates whether the child
has a toxic level of the drug and whether ipecac or a trip to the hospital
is in order.
Recalling the first time she had to instruct a parent to give her child
ipecac, Berard says, "The mother was distraught, and I'd never done
this before. I knew that motion and liquid activate the ipecac, so I suggested
that the mother play ring-around-the-rosy. It helped the mother to have
a goal, playing the game." The outcome was good. "It was interesting,
that first time. The mother didn't know it, but she and I were both learning
how to give ipecac."
From attending congressional briefings to answering constituents' letters
to designing a Web site, Kate Nepveu carried out the whole schmear of legislative
staff responsibilities as intern and then staff assistant for U.S. Representative
John Tierney.
"I went to briefings on a hodgepodge of topics," says Nepveu,
who's been accepted for admission to Yale Law School. "Fishing quotas,
emissions, prospects for elections in India. If I didn't know anything
about the topic, I decided, 'OK, I'm going to write down every single thing;
if I write all of it down, it may make some sense to someone back at the
office.' "
Nepveu also sent out standardized letters in response to the "tons
of e-mail that came in during the impeachment process" and penned
the congressman's letter to voters when the House was considering a package
of tax cuts. Of the latter, she's especially proud: "The version I
drafted came back [from Tierney] with no changes. I thought, 'Jeez, I guess
I really am learning.' "
Biology student Justi Santana, who will receive the Alcott Award for
applying academic studies to contribute to society, takes an up-close and
personal approach to health care. As research assistant at the Pediatric
Allergy, Immunology, and Respiratory Clinic at Boston Medical Center, he's
testing whether giving out roach traps to inner-city residents will help
lower this population's rising incidence of asthma, which has been correlated
with the presence of roaches.
Santana is also codirector of the A+ Teen Club at Boston Medical Center,
meeting with teens with asthma and allergies. "We work on the social
issues," he says. "You have to take on the emotional and family
issues that might lie behind medication noncompliance and absence from
school."
He does a slew of other things at the clinic-"I fit in where needed,
like glue"-including showing families and medical students inhaler
techniques and giving pulmonary function and skin-prick tests. "Dr.
Dohlman, my boss, treats me like a professional. I'm learning how the health
care system works, what approaches work and don't work, and how doctors
can find out what patients really need." Santana, who sees patient
confidence as crucial to "true health care" and feels his ability
to speak Spanish helps inspire it in some patients, hopes to become a pediatrician.
But, he says, "I don't want to be just a doctor, rather a doctor who
really helps people."
The awards ceremony will be held Friday, June 4, in the Curry Student
Center Ballroom, starting at 3:00. A reception will follow. For more information,
call Candace Herene, assistant dean of cooperative education, at 617-373-3460.
Deborah Klenotic is a freelance writer in the Amherst, Massachusetts,
area.
The 1999 Co-op Award Winners
Adalberto Justi Santana, Biology-Alcott Award
Michael Greenlee, Nursing-McMahon Award
Danny J. Gao, Business/MIS-Pratt Award
Tarek F. Ali, Electrical Engineering
Valerie Amoss, BouvéPhysical Therapy
Elephteria (Terie) Atsiknoudas, Business
Jennifer L. Berard, BouvéPharmacy
Shelley Boydston, Civil Engineering
Sheri L. Cardoza, Sociology
Nickolay Dimitrov, Business/Finance
Kristina Edge, BouvéAthletic Training
George D. Gal, Computer Science
Juliet L. Hutchings, Communication Studies
Renée L. Middendorf, Management Information Systems/
International Business
Kate H. Nepveu, Political Science
Jennifer Patullo, Criminal Justice
Joshua Seadia, Computer Science
Rukiya Shannon, Elementary Education/Human Services
Todd Michael Tomaino, Electrical Engineering
Teresa Vitale, BouvéPhysical Therapy
CALENDAR
THEATER
Quills, May 1922, Studio Theater, Curry Student Center, 8 p.m.
Tickets $12; $10 for N.U. students. 373-2247 or 373-2184 (TTY).
ART
Student Work Exhibition, presented by the Department of Art and Architecture,
May 31 to June 11, first floor, Ryder Hall, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
MUSIC
Music at Noon concert series, "Student Spotlight," May 20,
Curry Student Center Ballroom, noon. 373-2671.
N.U. Orchestra Spring Concert, "The Phantom of the Opera,"
May 23, Blackman Auditorium, 8 p.m. Tickets $7; $5 for N.U. students. 373-2247
or 373-2184 (TTY).
N.U. Choral Society Spring Concert, May 26, Curry Student Center Ballroom,
7:30 p.m. Tickets $10; $5 for N.U. students. 373-2247 or 373-2184 (TTY).
N.U. Jazz Ensemble Spring Concert, May 27, Studio Theater, Curry Student
Center, 8 p.m. Tickets $5; $3 for N.U. students. 373-2247 or 373-2184 (TTY).
N.U. Night at the Pops, June 17, Symphony Hall, Boston, 8 p.m. 373-2907.
LECTURES
"The Development of Languages and Their Learners: Evidence from
Studies of Sign Languages," by Elissa Newport, George Eastman Professor
of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, May 20, Raytheon
Amphitheater, Egan Research Center, 3:30 p.m. 373-3076.
"Metal Sorption Rates and Mechanisms at the Mineral-Water Interface,"
by D. L. Sparks, professor of chemistry, University of Delaware, May 20,
129 Hurtig, 4 p.m. 373-2822.
"Holocaust Memorial in Charleston, South Carolina: Architecture,
Urban Design, Sculpture," by Jonathan Levi, principal architect, Stein/Levi
Architects of Boston, May 20, 320 Classroom Building, 5:30 p.m. 373-2247.
"Synthesis of Novel Probes for the Estrogen Receptor Hormone Binding
Domain," by Robert Hanson, N.U. professor of pharmaceutical chemistry,
May 27, 129 Hurtig, 4 p.m. 373-2822.
ETC.
Guided tour of campus nature, with Chuck Doughty, director of suburban
campus facilities and the N.U. Greenhouse, May 24, starting at the steps
of Richards Hall, noon to 1 p.m. Rain date May 27. 373-3173.
Holocaust Survivors Share Their Stories. Sponsored by the Holocaust
Awareness Committee. May 24, Frost Lounge, Ell Building, 8, 9:15, and 10:30
a.m., and 1:35, 2:50, and 4:05 p.m.; and May 25, 8, 9:15, 10:30, and 11:45
a.m. 373-2728.
Capstone design contest, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
May 28, Raytheon Amphitheater, Egan Research Center, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. 373-5774.
School of Law commencement, May 28, Matthews Arena, 1 p.m.
Capstone design contest, Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing
Engineering, June 3, Raytheon Amphitheater, Egan Research Center, 8 a.m.
to 2 p.m. 373-5774.
Senior Breakfast and Welcome Party, June 16, Curry Student Center, West
Addition, 10:30 a.m. to noon.
Commencement ceremonies, June 19, FleetCenter, Boston, 10 a.m. Afternoon
ceremony for University College and advanced-degree recipients, 3:15 p.m.
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