Oct. 11, 2003 — Nursing programs at the University of the Virgin Islands have received $31,689 from the Bennie and Martha Benjamin Foundation.
The bachelor of science degree program on the St. Thomas campus has received $20,730 to purchase computers and $6,225 to support the Fourth Bennie and Martha Benjamin Nurse Lecture Series. The associate of science degree program on the St. Croix campus has received $4,734 to fund their "Expanding Educational Technology in Nursing" program, a release said.
Dr. Gloria Callwood, chairwoman of the St. Thomas campus nursing program, said the new computers will replace and supplement older computers in the nursing lab which cannot support new software.
"This grant that we used to get the computers is very important to our students' learning," Callwood said. "The computers will be used for multiple functions." Those functions, she added, include computer-assisted learning, Internet research, basic word processing, and presentations such as PowerPoint, which is required for some class presentations. Additionally, the computers will be able to support the CD-ROMs that are part of many textbooks.
The Fourth Bennie and Martha Benjamin Nurse Lecture Series will be held at 1 p.m. Monday, Oct. 13, in the Chase Auditorium (room B110) on the St. Thomas campus and video-conferenced to the theater room EC401 on the St. Croix campus. The guest lecturer is Sandra Millon Underwood, PhD, RN, FAAN.
The "Expanding Educational Technology in Nursing" program aims to improve technology in the nursing division. Funds from the grant will purchase two computers, educational videos and "software unique to our program," said Joan Marsh, chairwoman of the St. Croix campus nursing program.
Musician and songwriter Claude A. "Bennie" Benjamin was born in 1907 on St. Croix. Although he left for New York in 1927 and spent much of his life abroad, according to the Foundation Web site, he never forgot the Virgin Islands and in 1989 he established a foundation to help the territory's health-care system. The Foundation is co-named for his wife of more than 30 years.
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