Image

Heidi Cruz Eustaquio, RN, Pace University Lienhard School of Nursing graduate has a deep passion for healthcare. A dedicated and hardworking young alumna from the RN4 nursing program on the Pleasantville campus, she is starting her career in Perioperative services with NYU Langone Health.

Born and raised in the Philippines until moving to New York City at age 11, she is the youngest of five daughters. Through early experiences with community service and medical missions with her family, Heidi found her calling to the health professions.

“Growing up, my family participated in medical mission trips. During these experiences, I, unfortunately, saw lots of suffering due to poor and lack of access to good health care. These experiences instilled a passion for healthcare and sparked my decision to dedicate my life to improving this issue, which is relevant worldwide.”

When several of her family members were hospitalized and underwent surgery, Heidi realized “the role and privilege of nurses in healing communities” and was inspired by their opportunities to make a in difference in their patients’ and families’ lives. The experience led to her being fascinated with Perioperative services.

At Pace, Heidi was thrilled with the opportunity to take a Perioperative course as part of her nursing program to help her grow, achieve her dreams, and reach her goals. As a result of taking the perioperative elective course, she was hired for a perioperative trauma position that is often reserved for experienced nurses only.

“The main reasons I went into nursing were to help people and promote wellness. In this specialty, I can assist and ensure the safety and needs of the team and be an advocate for vulnerable patients.”

Today, Heidi has already begun her career with NYU Langone and feels privileged and excited to be working at such a prestigious, sophisticated, and world-renowned institution.

“Heidi was an extremely proactive, engaged and talented student,” said her former professor Dr. Millie Hepburn. “Her passion for nursing was clear in every nursing course. As faculty, I am so pleased that Heidi’s exceptional abilities and drive were acknowledged by healthcare facilities, and I cannot wait to hear of her future achievements!”

In August 2021, Kisha Thompson and Shiyon Mathew, students in the PhD in Nursing program, represented Pace University College of Health Professions at the Digital Innovators inaugural program. This was a collaboration between Apple and the Graduate Student Nursing Society (GNSA) designed to demonstrate how nursing education can be enhanced using technology.

Kisha and Shiyon were selected along with participants from 16 colleges nationwide through the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). Both are practicing healthcare professionals. Kisha has been a nurse for 23 years, 15 of which have been in nurse anesthesia, and Shiyon is a critical care nurse in an intensive care unit at a hospital in New York.

The pair’s presentation introduced the use of the “Unessay” in a Philosophy of Science course. The purpose of the Unessay was to encourage students to use creative and engaging ways to convey their views based on individual interests and strengths. The project entailed identifying an issue in nursing, taking a position, and making an argument based on a philosophical perspective. Their presentation provided a visual Unessay Choice Board demonstrating five potential choices for projects: video, audio, art, music, and digital. For students who chose the digital route, they also provided several apps that might be helpful.

"I enjoyed hearing about the cutting-edge learning strategies used at other institutions,” said Kisha. “Highlights of the program were sketchnoting on the iPad, making posters and Clips videos, and creating an EPub.”

"We become somewhat complacent when we conform to tradition and norms,” said Shiyon. “Taking part in the digital program challenged me to think unconventionally, not just from the perspective of an educator, but from the lens of the learner as well. The relationship is symbiotic."

In a nod to technology, participants created a Memoji for use in the course work.

"The faculty is very proud of Kisha and Shiyon and hope to be able to tap into the new skills that they gained,” said PhD Department Chair Dr. Sharon Stahl Wexler.

View all of the presentations on the AACN website.

Image

“Think about selling a car, it’s so much more in that,” said Mariama Diallo ’20. “First, you have to believe in your product or solution. Then you have to be motivated.”

“I consider myself a bullfighter,” said Eduardo Flo ’21.

Such are the mantras of the newly-formed, yet already considerably accomplished Lubin Sales Team. Founded in fall 2018, this interscholastic team, led by Lubin Clinical Professors Harvey Markovitz and Deborah Fain, has been racking up awards at numerous collegiate sales competitions throughout the country—including recognition at Kennesaw State University, Temple University, Duquesne University, The College of New Jersey, and more.

Through these compelling and practically-minded competitions, Pace students have been taking advantage of what’s proven to be quite a unique opportunity; the competitions enable students to simultaneously hone their professional sales skills, win prize money, and even secure job and internship offers.

Markovitz, who notes that Pace is the only college in Manhattan teaching professional sales, decided to form a sales team at Lubin after learning about the burgeoning sales competition network that continues to grow across the country.

“I go to various conferences with other professors teaching sales, I learned there’s this whole process amongst universities to develop students to become professional salespeople in a formal manner, to the extent that they can go to competitions and compete with one another,” said Markovitz. “It becomes a huge interscholastic competition network. There are about 120 schools involved.”

From there, Markovitz pitched the idea of forming a sales team to some of his students. The pitch, unsurprisingly, turned out to be quite successful.

“I was in his sales management class, he talked about his sales team, I was happy to see that I would have so many opportunities job-wise, and meet other people that would share the same passion,” said Diallo. “Professor Markovitz gave me the right sales pitch.”

As an international student, Diallo realized that the sales team could potentially open invaluable doors to companies and opportunities—some of which she has already taken advantage of.

“With the sales team, there are a lot of opportunities—winning money, being able to get a job,” said Diallo. “As an international student, it’s really hard to stay here because we need a sponsorship. Through this competition, I was able to find companies willing to sponsor me in the future, and I had a wonderful internship this summer with Granite Telecommunications.”

At Granite, Diallo even went on to win an intra-company sales competition amongst interns, first winning the competition amongst the interns in New York, then traveling to Boston to win the company’s national competition.

“I was able to win $1,000 in scholarship money,” said Diallo. “That was a great experience.”

Granite Telecommunications, alongside Guardian Life Insurance, State Farm Insurance, Tom James Co., and View, are the generous external sponsors who help fund the sales team. And while their generosity has been considerable, the companies view their sponsorship as a win-win proposition. By helping fund the team, they gain access to some of the best and brightest salespeople of tomorrow.

“Because we have these sponsors who are very generous, we are able to travel,” says Markovitz. ”What’s in it for the sponsors? They have the opportunity to take our best, hire them, make them job offers. They know these kids are trained to be professional sales-people day one out of school. They’re job ready.”

After a successful fall, the team is looking to continue to spread its wings with springtime competitions across the country, including the national competition at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Given that last year’s graduating team members secured jobs at UPS and FDM Group, Markovitz is confident that this year’s outgoing batch will continue this new, yet exciting Pace tradition.

As for the future? Markovitz, Diallo, and Flo all believe the sky’s the limit—both for the continued growth of the team and their own personal trajectories.

“It’s the most exciting thing that’s happening at Lubin right now,” said Markovitz.