Professor Yaw Nsiah, chair of the Department of Health Sciences and Nursing, won Eastern’s 2024 Award for Exemplary Service for his vital role in launching the university’s nursing program last year.

The award goes to a faculty member who demonstrates “academic excellence in teaching, devotion to scholarship and service to the university.” He received the award at the conclusion of the spring 2024 semester.

Nsiah spearheaded the development of the health sciences program in 2017, which was expanded to include nursing in 2023. “We started with a certificate program in public health and then a minor in public health, then a certificate in allied health,” said Nsiah. “Eventually, we put everything together to form the department.”

Nsiah’s use of the word “we” is intentional. “I don't like to use ‘I’ because I have worked with an extremely competent, supportive group of faculty and staff who (agreed) that we needed a health sciences and nursing department,” he said.

“It has been a group effort to put this program together,” he said. “You can call me a lead, but I’m simply trying to gather a group of people to do something good for the institution.”

Connecticut is facing a nursing shortage, which Eastern aims to alleviate with its partnership with Hartford Healthcare. The Department of Health Sciences and Nursing has more than 400 students enrolled this semester. This semester's first-time enrollment includes 92 students in the health sciences major and 66 in nursing -- the maximum cohort size for the program.

“We have a program that is very attractive to students because of the career opportunities,” said Nsiah, adding that the current nursing workforce is aging, presenting opportunities for the next generation of nurses. “The nursing profession currently is top heavy.”

Speaking to the challenges of developing a nursing program, he said, “Nursing programs are capital intensive; they requires a lot of money and require a lot of resources. Therefore, not every school is able to train more nurses.”

Eastern was able to launch its nursing program with the help of a $1.2 million grant from the Connecticut Health Horizons program. The program will also benefit from a soon-to-be-built simulation lab at Windham Hospital.

Additionally, Nsiah encourages students to study abroad to enrich their nursing and health sciences education. As such, he sponsors a related global field course in Ghana. “Now that we have the nursing program, the students will get to actually practice their profession when they go on this global field internship,” he said.

“It’s not just Willimantic or Connecticut ... There are a whole bunch of other people out there who have a different perspective on life. But at the end, you see that they are not that different. They feel the same things you feel and they are all humans.”

Nsiah is proud to have won the Exemplary Service to Eastern Award, but he takes little credit for it himself. “I just do my job; there’s nothing personal about it,” he said. “I just want to be an effective member of the community here.”

For Nsiah, the Eastern community includes many team members who have helped him achieve his dream of developing the Department of Health Sciences and Nursing. “I've worked with some great people,” he said. “I couldn't do this without all those folks.”