Alumni, faculty and select students from the University gathered to enjoy each other’s company during the Dine With Your Dean lunch. Colleges from across the University each hosted their alumni and students for lunch and conversation.
In the Lois Grier Room, the William Preston Turner School of Nursing and Holisa Wharton, its dean, hosted a select few students and alumni, including Ruth Seigler ’62, Gina Fingerlin ’83 and Robin Wideman ’02. Wharton welcomed the alumni back to campus and filled them in on the progress of the School of Nursing in recent years, and its goals for the future.
When Seigler came to Lander in 1962, the school, especially the nursing program, was a much different place. “In my class we had 25 students and four faculty,” she said. “The program was two years, but it was year-round.”
In addition to the William Preston Turner School of Nursing, the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, College of Science, Math and College of Arts and Humanities and the College of Education also hosted a Dine With Your Dean event.
After the lunches wrapped up, two sessions presented by Lander faculty were available for attendees to choose from: “Marrying Passion, Research, and Teaching in the Classroom,” presented by Dr. Kevin Witherspoon, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Endowed Chair of the Department of History and Philosophy, and a “Race and Identity Dialogue,” presented by Dr. Shaunette Parker, clinical assistant professor of psychology.