June 14, 2024

We recently sat down with Vice President of Health Sciences Renee Harrison for a discussion about her plans for the future of health services at Forsyth Tech. She shared her ideas for student progression through Forsyth Tech’s health programs, and the importance of health care providers looking at the individual through multiple paradigms of wellness. She delights in seeing former students coming back to continue their health services education at the school, and she particularly enjoys welcoming them as colleagues in the health profession.

Good afternoon. For our readers, what is your role here at Forsyth Tech and how long have you been with the school?

Renee Harrison: Currently my role is Dean of Health Sciences and I also continue to provide additional support to nursing with some of the director responsibilities to nursing. Recently, I was promoted to Vice President, Health Sciences, beginning June 1. I’ve been with the college since 2011.

Where are you located on campus?

I am located in Bob Greene Hall. However, we do have programs that are on all of our campuses at Forsyth Tech, but my office is located here on the main campus.

What do you envision for health services at Forsyth Tech?
Renee Harrison: Health Sciences is such a large area and it is not specific to one aspect of health care. We have such a unique opportunity with our Health Sciences programming here at Forsyth Tech to really make a large impact that could be long lasting to address the needs of our community locally, nationally and to make such an impact on healthcare as a whole.

When we think about health, we’ve evolved to how we define health. We are so unique at Forsyth Tech, and this kind of speaks to my vision, because when we think about where we are in health now and where health is for the future, we’re thinking about holistically the entire aspect of caring for the individual as well as the family. And so when we think about how to care for someone, we must view health through the lens that includes mental health, physical health, and looking at things through the three paradigms of which is wellness, preventative care, and sustainability of health.

And we can do it because we already have the programs in place and the opportunities that we can continue to grow and expand to be able to meet those needs. And so, quite simply, I envision us being a trailblazer, being a key catalyst in our academic setting and community, to be able to respond to what is needed for the health of an individual, and to be able to collectively care for the individual.
We need to be able to offer programs that are designed to be able to care for our population in all the ways our population will change. We are anticipating a increase in our population with the number of older adults by 2030. We are also anticipating the need for more long-term care and rehabilitation.  I see us being able to prepare students, our graduates, to be those team members to meet the emerging and growing needs of health care as it continues to evolve.

And so that means our work has to be centered around and creating programs that offer diverse learning offerings, that can engage individuals who have this desire to be health care team members, and help them find the careers that they desire to have.

Do you have a particular student story that you would like to share?
Renee Harrison: I think there’s one for every year. I think the one that comes to mind right now is our student in Human Services. She spoke to our campus community and shared how she’s changed her life. She was incarcerated for a small amount of time and she shared how she’s returned to school, and right now, she’s studying to be able to address the addiction needs of Stokes County.
And I think that just speaks to the opportunities we provide for our students. They are life changing and it’s not only changes in their life, but our students and graduates are able to go out and have an impact and change someone else’s life. And I’m not saying that another discipline doesn’t do that, but quite often, many of our students leave us with the intent to be life-changing individuals and help others transform their lives for the better. 

Do you see a lot of former students, with continuing education and in the community?

Renee Harrison: Yes, we see them in many forms. Often, they will return to visit and I have the opportunity to see them in practice, and see how they have transitioned into wonderful healthcare team members and colleagues. Additionally, since I’ve become Dean, my aim was to bring more of our graduates back, and offer them opportunities to grow as instructors and help us educate future team members.

Nursing shortages are a national issue. How is Forsyth Tech working to meet this need?

Renee Harrison: Where we find our struggle is not about recruitment of students in our nursing programs.
We have more applicants than we are able to admit, three times the amount, so we’re very fortunate. Our concern is not related to trying to attract students to apply, to become a nurse, we’re just not able to admit as many people that are interested.

In our effort to address this we have created additional programming, seamless opportunities for students to return to school to continue to advance their nursing career goals. And added additional admitting cycles.

Our strength and what is unique about us is we are one of the few community college programs that offer readmitting and transfer opportunities for our program.

When thinking about traditional and adult learners, how do they go about entering our programs? Are there access issues that make it difficult for adult learners to return?

Renee Harrison: Yes, there are some access issues.  Transportation and daycare are two of the most common.  With transportation we often forget that it could easily take 30 minutes to get somewhere from one side of Winston-Salem to the other. And that’s without traffic. So, transportation is definitely a concern because clinical space sometimes doesn’t align with budget and time that students have mapped out and their transportation needs may be met for learning that is on campus, but not for clinical.
Daycare is often one of our concerns as well because of the clinical times, and sometimes there’s no work around for that. Ideally, we would like to have our clinical time of choice, but we do not have that opportunity. We must have clinical at the times that are available at our clinical site, which sometimes creates more than one issue because you can’t always select a clinical for a student that best aligns with where they live, the schedule they need for work, the schedule they need to take care of their kids.


What has changed since I’ve been a part of nursing education, which, although I’ve been at Forsyth Tech for about 13 or 14 years, I’ve been in nursing education since 2006, and one of the things that I have seen that has changed is we are no longer in an era where we can expect our students to always prioritize school first. Many of our adult learners must work and the pandemic shifted us and people have to balance their priorities. They have the desire to make school first, but life doesn’t allow them to do that. That really poses a concern sometimes because every student isn’t able to do that, so we do our very best to meet students’ needs so they can continue their education. I would also like to add that we have many students that English is their second language, and sometimes there aren’t always the resources available to support their needs, and that is not just us, that’s sometimes in the clinical settings as well, those resources are not there. We really have to think about that because we want to have health care team members that represent our population, and our population is diverse.

So, I would say that those are probably the top concerns, and of course, finances, because health programs are very expensive. The journey to credentialing can be costly for students, and so if there was a way that we could have more support for the things that we know would help students be successful, that would be wonderful. Many of the certification preparation exams are truly a barrier for students because they can be as costly. They can cost anywhere between $50 and $500 very easily, and while that may seem small to some, it’s a lot. The software programs are also very costly, and companies don’t offer need-based or other considerations.

Do scholarships help with that?

Renee Harrison: Sometimes the need is greater than the scholarship that is provided and sometimes it’s just the balance of that. And then sometimes there’s restrictions on scholarships, where they are only for tuition. We run into those challenges, but scholarships are always helpful.

Is there an opportunity for remote learning within our programs?

Renee Harrison: There is opportunity and I think because we were so successful in the pandemic, it is not possible for me to say no. We do find our students learn better in person. But overall, yes, there is room for remote, and it must be because that is us meeting what some of our students need.  Things that can’t be remote are clinical and some of our competencies that confirm competency for patient care. But much can be remote, and that is one of the things that we’re hoping with some our new programming and program expansions in Health Sciences. We’re hoping to have more hybrid opportunities because we need to address the needs of our current and future students. If we can help students balance the asynchronous and synchronous learning opportunities, it’s less for them to have to balance schedule-wise.

What new developments are you looking forward to with the health program?
Renee Harrison: We are the recent recipient of grants, that will assist us in expanding in  Human Services Technology, Nursing, and add new programming such as  Central Sterile Processing. We hope to have that program in place and accepting students this academic year and in 2025. So that’s just around the corner.  Additionally we are engaged in many initiatives aimed towards new curriculums, pathways, credentialing and many other opportunities that we hope to launch in 2025 and beyond.  Overall, I am excited about it all and how we will continue to serve as leaders and trailblazers in Health Sciences.

Thank you for sharing your vision with us, Dean Harrison.