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Honors Final Reflection

Nathaniel Hunter

Sokolov Honors College

HONR 4890C: Senior Honors Thesis Capstone

Presley Bowser

April 16, 2023

Introduction

This paper discusses my time and experiences as a member of the Sokolov Honors

College. It touches on my experiences and how they relate to the five honors college pillars and

my reflections of the opportunities presented to me during my time at the university. I also talk

about my growth as a person and of my knowledge and abilities I acquired through my time at

the university.

Scholarship and Research Honors Reflection

I do not remember much from the Honors courses I took with the exception of Honors

3799B Special Topics: Honors Tropical Ecology. This course, especially the trip portion, I call

my coming-of-age moment. It made me realize that I am constantly looking towards the future

while barely living in the now. It allowed me to grow as a person and show how I could be more

sociable, and who I could become. In terms of my major and how I can apply this to my career

requires some backstory. I had a snorkel-induced panic attack in the middle of the ocean. The

faculty felt it best to take me to the clinic where I came out with a clean bill of health, but it

allowed me an inside view of how a healthcare facility and the employees with access to limited

supplies operate; with the supply chain issues happening in the world, this knowledge is

invaluable.

If there is one thing I enjoy, it's sifting through academic articles to create a coherent

persuasive argument. That is what the majority of my honors contracts consisted of. As I got

further along in my schooling, I got more confident and thus began branching out into other

areas.

For my health assessment class I created a powerpoint presentation on how the use of

personal protective equipment (PPE) is used to lessen the spread of infections from person to
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person and presented it to my class. I compared the use of PPE between medical professionals

and the general public. I went into detail on different types of masks and how they should be

worn, the use of face shields, gloves, gowns, and pointed out errors many people make when

wearing PPE, especially the public. My research included five academic articles and information

from the Food and Drug Administration. I do wish I could go back and redo this presentation

with the knowledge I know now to correct some of the statements I made.

My professional nursing 2 honors contract consisted of a 5-6 page paper on the various

ways one can protect themselves and their community from disease. Part of this paper did build

off of my PPE project, but focused and expanded on the use of masks targeting those that were

frequently worn during the pandemic. I also included a section on how vaccinations help in

protecting us from disease.

My project for community health nursing would have been the project I would be the

most proud of if I was able to accomplish my goals. I wanted to bring an opioid overdose and

naloxone use training (ex. Project DAWN) to campus given the Mahoning Valley has one of the

highest opioid overdose rates in the state. I decided to try to go through housing and Greek Life

as an inlet to bringing this on campus. Housing ultimately refused my offer, while not allowing

me to answer any questions they may have had, some with very simple answers. Greek Life

never got back to my initial outreach and subsequent attempts at communication.

This project was initially even more ambitious. I wanted to bring a needle exchange to

the area, as Mahoning and Trumbull counties are one of the few counties in the state to not have

them, especially with how high blood-borne diseases and intravenous drug use is in the area.

After talking with the HIV Coordinator at the Trumbull Health Department, I realized that this

project would take up far more of my time than I could allow at the time as the exchange
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requires the prosecutor to be on board with the idea, the prosecutor at the time was very against it

and I decided my time was better spent otherwise.

In scholarly work, I have participated in a number of research studies. While I do not

have the official title of the first study I participated in, which involved pre and post briefings for

nursing simulations conducted by Dr. Wagner of the Centofanti School of Nursing. The second

research study I participated in was “Post-Conference Debriefing for Clinical Judgement

Development in Nursing Students” and was conducted by Dr. Laura Calcagni who is a current

faculty member in the Centofanti School of Nursing. Neither studies have released any of their

results as of yet.

I have also submitted two works to the Nursing Virtual Scholarship Symposium. The first

submission was a poster I presented at the 2021 annual Wellfest on STI Prevent and Sexual

Health and was submitted the same year. The second piece that was submitted was a presentation

on a literature review I conducted on bariatric surgery versus diet and exercise in 2022.

Leadership and Engagement Reflection

One of my biggest regrets in my four years at YSU, was that I did not take part in more

Honors College activities. Much like high school, I did not get as engaged with the happenings at

the school until my senior year. Most, if not all of my engagements with the honors college, were

in my freshman year.

I was a bit more engaged with general organizations at YSU. My first year I signed up for

a number of organizations, but only really attempted to engage with one of them, which was

Youngstown Coalition Against Human Trafficking. This trend continued into my second and the

beginning of my third year.

Eventually during my third year, I joined YSUnity, which had what felt like one meeting

before falling apart, but someone else brought the organization back and I volunteered as

treasurer for as long as was needed. I am still the treasurer, but I hope to bring someone up into

the position and train them for their eventual takeover. I also joined Youngstown Environment

and Sustainability Society at some point in my schooling, although I do not entirely remember

when, but I enjoy this group, environmental rights are something important to me. Also around

this time I joined Planned Parenthood Generation Action. I am also the student ambassador for

the YSU chapter, Xi Xi, of Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society, which I’ve

been a member of for a year, but only recently got more involved in.

I have engaged with the community in a number of events. I have attended a multitude of

protests and rallies as a peace-marshall and one as a speaker, joined in community meetings on

the SOBE chemical burning plant that the CEO wants to build a block from campus, and I have a

hand in putting the May Day Celebration together at the Calvin Center.

I am a part of a few community groups, but the one I am most engaged with is the

Mahoning Valley Democratic Socialists of America. It is through this organization that I have

been able to retrieve peace-marshall training, learned of the SOBE meetings, and supported at

the rallies and protests. Through this organization, I plan to open up public classes on many first

aid and basic life support trainings, such as Stop the Bleed trainings, Opioid Education and

Naloxone Use trainings, and a hands on course for learning CPR/AED use (with certifications if

I am able to become an instructor). The MVDSA also has many mutual aid opportunities in the

works to better the community and fight against the injustices of a system that seeks to keep us,

as a community, down.
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These experiences have made me who I am, I have learned a lot about myself attending

various events and meetings. I am someone who is not afraid to call out the wrongs of society

and fight to make them right. My confidence has grown since I have been getting more and more

involved.

As said above, I am the current treasurer for YSUnity and student ambassador for Sigma

Xi Xi chapter and have the training to operate as a peace-marshall at protests and rallies. I do not

know how I would describe my leadership style, I try to get input from everyone my decisions

affect before deciding and strive for democratic processes in the organizations I am a part of.

One of the organizations I have a leadership position in is currently wanting to raise dues without

consulting the rest of the membership and I feel that is horrendously wrong.

Advocating for democratic processes in organizations and not being afraid of speaking

out goes along with how I feel about the balance between leadership and followership. The

leaders of an organization should work for and advocate on behalf of their members, not the

other way around. Members should be involved in most, if not all, decisions of the organization

even if that decision goes against the will of the leadership.

Volunteerism and Service-Learning reflection

I have been of service to others numerous times at YSU, but not often the same person or

organization more than once, unless it was something I enjoyed doing. Penguin penpals is the

first thing that comes to mind. I thoroughly enjoyed watching my various penpals’ language

skills grow over the year that we wrote to each other. The other is community activism such as

the March for Trans Lives and helping with the SOBE meetings. I cannot say I have learned

much from doing Penguin penpals, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. On the other hand, I have

learned so much from doing community activism along with taking part in training I use in my
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day-to-day life, such as peace marshal training and canvassing training. Through the connections

I made, I also have the opportunity to go through street medic training, which I plan on doing

once the training is offered.

My biggest community concerns tie into my major. I am a huge advocate for greater

access to outreach and prevention, a central tenet of community health nursing, for diseases

along with harm reduction efforts. I have plans to teach classes on the different chronic diseases

within the community including ways to prevent the disease entirely or to prevent it from getting

worse. Harm reduction efforts work much in the same way, but rather than completely prevent

the action that causes harm, these efforts reduce the harm caused by these actions. One of my

honors projects surrounded an opioid overdose education and naloxone distribution (OEND)

program, but a secondary objective was to push for a needle exchange program in Mahoning

county, which was sadly unsuccessful.

An OEND and needle exchanges are both examples of harm reduction as they do not try

to put a stop to the action of using intravenous drugs, rather reduce the risk of overdose when the

drug is a narcotic and reduce the transfer risk of blood-borne pathogens (HIV, Hepatitis, etc.)

from a dirty needle, which in turn would reduce the prevalence of these diseases in the

community. I also hope to be able to train people in Stop the Bleed, which includes wound

packing and tourniquet use, but I would like my class to have the added training of using and, if

needed, creating chest seals for sucking chest wounds. The training offered through St. Elizabeth

is focused on wounds sustained from car accidents, of which car accidents do not cause many

sucking chest wounds.

I hope to gain a safer community that will come to the realization that many problems

that feel overbearing, such as opioid overdoses, can be fought against and eventually overcome
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when the community comes together. The needle exchange would lead to more safety

surrounding all healthcare workers who are at risk for accidental needle sticks along with the

reduced risk of sharing needles leading to pathogen infection.

Global Citizenship and Interdisciplinary Perspectives Reflection

A global citizen is one that understands that there may be cultural differences when

meeting a person for the first time and works to understand the differences and respect them

during their interaction with the new culture and all subsequent interactions with that culture.

They also understand that their actions, especially those surrounding research and other large

actions, can affect an innumerable amount of people. While not required, global citizens may

have a desire to travel to countries where the culture is much different from theirs.

I used to be somewhat of an isolationist when I first started my time at YSU, but

throughout my time here I have instead subscribed to a policy of “No nations, no borders.” A no

nations, no borders policy is similar to the open borders of the European Union. I am working on

deconstructing many of the inherent biases I developed during my childhood, a slow and difficult

process, but a required one.

One of the biggest ways I stepped out of my comfort zone was going on the honors

Bahama’s trip. I have never been out of the country, let alone the continent. I thrust myself into a

new country and culture, not as a tourist, but as someone who is willing and open to learn the

culture and norms of the country.

As stated above, the Bahamas trip helped my understanding of the Bahamian culture as

did sharing an executive board on a student organization with a student from the Bahamas, the

Ipenpals program helped my have a better understanding of the Vietnamese culture, and many of
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the organizations I am a part of outside of the university have helped me, or has the potential to

help me, understand different cultures, such as Cuban culture and Croatian culture.

Being a global citizen is said to be a part of my career, nursing, and I have had plenty of

opportunities to interact with different cultures. Not to mention, being a global citizen is a big

part of my personal nursing philosophy and encourages world-wide nursing where the synthesis

of cultures could lead to much better patient outcomes in different parts of the world. This area

has a high prevalence of hispanic people and various Middle Eastern cultures that are very

different from Western cultures that I have had the opportunity to work with and ask questions to

better understand their culture. I have also done the same with various religions to better

understand them.

For the future, I have already offered my services to a nursing professor who was recently

awarded a grant to create a pop-up clinic in the Youngstown-Warren area, which will allow me to

interact with a much broader population, and thus different cultures, than I would normally.

Through the professional nursing organization, Sigma Theta Tau, I joined, I have the opportunity

to go to the International Sigma Conference which has representatives from over 120 countries.

Lifelong Learning and Intrapersonal Development

My courses have taught me innumerable skills and the knowledge to better patient

outcomes. Some of the skills are hands-on and can save lives, such as wound packing, tourniquet

use, opioid overdose education and naloxone use training, and the ability to teach these skills to

others. The knowledge involves every body system including what can go wrong, how to treat

different ways body systems can go wrong, and the ability to critically think through situations

that have plenty of nuance and may involve a patient’s condition worsening or a lab value

requiring an intervention or to not do a prescribed intervention.

I learned a lot about myself during my time here. I have become much more sure of

myself and what I want to do with my life. I have found ways to fight for a better tomorrow

through my learned skills, my voice, and by finding a group of people with similar ideas and

want to change. I also made a lot of mistakes, few of them big mistakes, most of them had little

impact on myself and the world around me and are simple regrets. I feel like I didn’t get involved

enough in campus organizations and leadership positions. My biggest successes are the opposites

of my mistakes. They are the times where I did get involved. Sigma Theta Tau International

Honors Nursing Society is one such success, where I got involved and bettered the way they

contact invited students to provide a more likely way that students will join.

Honors gave me a push to do extra projects and practice my research skills and the

Ecology of the Bahamas class allowed me to experience another society and their culture, which

I have never had the chance to do before. Otherwise, everything has been done on my own

volition, mostly through other organizations and the people I have met there.

I have applied and been accepted for a floor nurse position on 4 South Extension

Progressive Intermediate Care unit at Bon Secour Mercy Health St. E’s Youngstown hospital. I

had the option to go somewhere else, somewhere that paid more, had better benefits, and simply

cared more for their staff than Mercy Health does. But that would require me to leave the place I

was born and have already begun fighting for better patient outcomes and for the hospital to

begin respecting nurses for what they do.

Nursing is a prime example of a career where lifelong learning is built into it. To keep my

license, I need 24 continuing education credits every two years, although these credits don’t

necessarily mean that one is learning much. I plan on furthering my career and knowledge. In

what regard? I am not sure yet, but my current thoughts are becoming a nurse practitioner and
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taking my practice to the streets and treating the people experiencing homelessness or another

underserved group of people. Hands-on patient care in resource-constrained areas is known as

austere-medicine and is a less-utilized route to assist people who may need the help, but lack the

resources to get the help they need on their own.

Conclusion

While my time at the university as an undergrad is over, I look forward to the future and

all it holds. I will be an advocate, educator, and revolutionary to better patient outcomes and

work to uplift the working class for a better future for all of us. I can thank YSU and the honors

college for the research and outreach opportunities presented to me during my time here.