OTTERBEIN COLLEGE RECEIVES OVER $280,000 IN GRANTS

Nursing
Otterbein College recently received a grant of 199,806 from the Ohio Board of Nursing to fund the Fostering Leaders, Advocates, Mentors and Educators (FLAME) program. This program helps to prepare licensure nurses in the skill sets of nurse educator and clinical nurse leader through an innovative education/leadership program. Otterbein will expand on current collaboration with the Fairfield Medical Center to include the Department of Veterans Affairs Chalmers P. Wylie Ambulatory Care Center to prepare students through intensive mentored education and leadership immersion experiences. Through the use of distance technology and an accelerated format, the FLAME model will be implemented with students to complete a combined nurse educator and clinical nurse leader program resulting in a master’s degree in nursing and a nursing education certificate. Upon completion of the program, graduates will be encouraged to remain in their home communities to improve health care quality, promote advocacy and/or serve as educators and mentors to pre-licensure nursing students.

The Health Resources and Services Administration has granted $49,159 to Otterbein to fund the fifth year of the Advanced Education Nursing Traineeship Grant. This grant increases the number of advanced practice nurses who provide health services to diverse under-served populations in rural counties in central and Appalachian Ohio.

Freshwater Mussels Survey of Lake Erie Refugia
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has granted $30,942 to fund a Freshwater Mussel Survey of Lake Erie Refugia. The survey is to sample probable refugia in Lake Erie for mussels. Otterbein College Professor Dr. Michael Hoggarth, along with a colleague from The Ohio State University, recently discovered unknown communities of mussels in a marina and in river channels emptying into Lake Erie. The objective of this survey is to determine if other such habitats also support mussels.

Honors Program
The National Collegiate Honors Council has granted $1,000 to Otterbein College to support Kneading Minds: Integrative Service in the Otterbein College Honors Program. This venture will bring Honors residents together to bake break every two weeks, following the social entrepreneur model, under the guidance of Otterbein’s campus bakers. A portion of the bread produced through the program will be donated to local food pantries, and the remaining bread will be sold following local church services, with the profits used to replenish baking supplies. Once each quarter, Honors students also will host a group of at-risk youth who participate in service clubs at their schools and teach them to bake bread, which will also be donated to local food pantries.