One of the areas we toured was the nursing student lounge. The administration wanted to decorate this informal area with a bunch of rah-rah photos of earnest nursing students doing student stuff, but the students would have none of that. Here is what happened when they took it over:
Much more fun, don't you think? And it truly now belongs to the students. Classmates Dorothy and Bonnie don't look much older than they did back in 1976.
I just love the exuberance of the wall art in this lounge.
Here's a corner with places to recharge mobile devices, a constant concern in all colleges today.
We also spent time in the skills lab, a site of truly remarkable technological improvement since my student years. The mannequins can be controlled by an instructor's laptop from another room. While a student is practicing wound dressing, starting an IV or physical assessment, her "patient" can develop rapid pulse, drop in blood pressure, a skin rash, dilated or pinpoint pupils--he or she can groan, cry out,or even vomit! It's very dramatic.
I stayed with old friends Michael and Margot, giving all of us a chance to catch up on family matters, to tour improvements in the city of Dayton (especially the outstanding renewal of Dayton Metro Libraries--construction, artwork, sophisticated programming), and to enjoy crafted beers at the Brewery at Carillon Park. Margot and I indulged our love of fiber by shopping for fabric and yarn as well. I will be knitting during my next trip. During this one, however, I was putting some threads onto a new piece. Here's a detail.
This piece relates to the 2010 BP Macondo well explosion and subsequent undersea crude oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The deepwater area affected by oil sludge is estimated to be about the size of Yellowstone National Park. No one really has any idea how it can be cleaned up.