A Degree is More Than an Expensive Piece of Paper

Today is a big day for Geoffrey Jolly. It’s Father’s Day and his 44th birthday. But today, he’s more in the mood to celebrate fatherhood than his entry into the world.

For the last nine years, he has worked all day, gone to class at night and studied into the early-morning hours.

All so his daughter could learn some important lessons.

“I did it for her,” he says, the voice of a million fathers.

7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

When Danisha Jolly was young, she wondered why her father left for work so early and came home so late.

Most days, he went to work around 7 a.m., about the time she went to school. He returned home around 10 p.m., usually after she was asleep.

Danisha was 10 when Geoffrey, her father, went back to college. At first, she did not understand why her father was away from home so long.

As she grew older, she began to realize that he was trying to earn more money so her family could have a better house and take more elaborate vacations.

In addition to taking business classes at Oakwood University, he drove the Bookmobile for the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library and worked part-time for a clothing store.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” Danisha says. “You can keep reaching and striving for goals.”

But there was another reason Geoffrey worked two jobs while trying to become the first member of his family to graduate from college.

He wanted to show his daughter the value of a college education.

“I don’t want her to have to walk down the same path that I did,” he says. “I had to work two jobs. But if you go to college and get your degree, you just have to work one job. And that’s enough.”

Ultimately, there was competition between Jolly and his daughter.

Who would be first? Would Geoffrey graduate from college before Danisha graduated from Buckhorn High School?

On May 10, Geoffrey received his degree from Oakwood.

On May 21, his daughter graduated from high school.

“My dad was determined,” Danisha says. “That made me not give up in high school.”

‘Why should I go?’

In 1999, when he was 35, Geoffrey Jolly told his wife, “One of us is going to have to get our degree.”

Already, he was thinking about the day when Danisha would consider college.

“So many kids say, ‘You didn’t go, so why should I go?’ “he says. “They say, ‘I’ll just go out and get an 8-to-5 job.’ “

But an 8-to-5 job wasn’t enough for Geoffrey. For years, he had been working as a Bookmobile driver.

For the last seven years, he has been the only Bookmobile driver in the county.

Since the early 1990s, he has also worked as a part-time salesman at Romans Men’s Wear off Jordan Lane.

“You work for 21 years, and it’s hard not making money,” he says. “I wanted to give my daughter a better life than what I had.”

He had gone to Alabama A&M in the mid-1980s. His goal was to earn a degree in computer science and become the first of his eight brothers and sisters to graduate from college.

Money, though, became scarce and he was unable to afford tuition.

By and by, he became consumed with the major events in his life: marriage, the birth of his daughter, the purchase of a new home.

“I wanted to get my degree before I was 40, but it didn’t work out that way,” he says. “I got a home in 2000, and the mortgage has got to be paid.”

Finally, he told himself: I’ve got to do this – it can be done.

Most nights, he studied after he came home from work. With the phone off, with the house quiet and Danisha asleep, he studied until 1 a.m.

On weekends, he studied on Sunday afternoons at the library.

When he was tired and wanted to quit, he thought of his daughter and pressed on.

“There were so many times when you want to say ‘forget this,’ ” he says. “Your body gets tired. But I wanted to show her we can do this with hard work.”

Now, he wants to get his master’s degree. Maybe pursue a career in business as a contract specialist.

As for Danisha, she’s preparing for her freshman year at Alabama A&M. Already, she’s taking college classes at Calhoun.

“She doesn’t have a choice now,” Geoffrey says. “She has the support.”

And the example.

“My dad is an inspiration,” Danisha says. “He shows what happens when you stay focused and don’t give up.”

Says Geoffrey: “I tell her, ‘Suffer now and be happy later.’ “

Thanks to Mike Marshall who wrote this original post in the The Huntsville Times

Nursing Shortage Leads to Career Opportunities

As a nursing shortage with a projected magnitude three times greater than any previous shortage in the U.S. looms large, data from three studies indicate harder times are ahead for patients and the healthcare workforce.

“The numbers tell the story about the future of the U.S. nursing workforce,” says Peter I. Buerhaus, Valere Potter distinguished professor of nursing and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. Despite the recent upturn in interest in nursing, the profession is not expected to replace all the RNs who will be retiring over the next decade. By 2020, the gap between demand and supply will grow to an estimated 258,000 RNs — nearly three times larger than any shortage experienced in this country in the past 50 years, he says.

Buerhaus presented his data along with fellow researchers Karen Donelan, EdM, ScD, senior scientist in health policy, Institute for Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, and Beth Ulrich, RN, EdD, FACHE, FAAN, senior vice president, professional and consulting services, Nursing Spectrum/Nurse Week, at a press conference in May at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Closing the gap between the future demand and supply of RNs is made harder by problems in nursing education, Buerhaus says. Nursing education programs are experiencing shortages of faculty and classroom and clinical space. The increasing retirement of nursing educators is predicted to further constrain nursing education programs’ ability to produce all the nurses needed for the future. “We’ve turned away thousands of qualified applicants over the past several years,” he says.

During the next 15 years, the average age of RNs will increase from 43.5 in 2005 to 44.7 in 2012 and beyond, according to Buerhaus’ data. By 2012, more employed RNs will be in their 50s than in any other age group. By 2020 there will be more RNs in their 60s than in their 20s.

During the past 10 years, the proportion of foreign-born RNs employed in the U.S. increased rapidly. Of the estimated 252,479 RNs comprising the five-year growth period of nurses from 2002 to 2006, 93,000 were foreign-born. The growth in employment among foreign-born RNs was greater than employment growth of the U.S.-born RNs between 2004 and 2006.

Men have helped increase the number of nurses. From 1983, with about 50,000 full-time employed RNs who were men, the number grew to 200,000 in 2006 or 9% of the total full-time RN workforce.

Although it is difficult to obtain accurate counts of minorities because of changes in governmental guides for determining racial and ethnic backgrounds, the data show that minorities account for about 22% of the current RN workforce.

In previous national surveys, RNs ranked the main reasons for the current shortage as salary and benefits, more career options for women, undesirable hours, negative perception of the healthcare work environment, and lack of qualified students pursing nursing as a career. The fact that surveys since 2002 show fewer RNs report these factors as the cause of the current shortage suggests RNs perceive some improvements.

The nursing shortage has implications for healthcare reform as 78 million baby boomers turn 65 and older in the next two decades, and people older than age 85 are the fastest growing segment of the population.

“Studies have shown that fewer nurses translate to poorer quality of care,” says Buerhaus. The shortage is associated with quality indicators such as pressure ulcers, injuries from falls, and increased hospital lengths of stay, he says.

The shortage, which may spike to 500,000 by 2025, combined with the aging nursing workforce and a surge in demand for health care, do not bode well for the future, Buerhaus says.

Thank you to Nurse.com for this original post.