BC3 Class of 2024 nurses set record
BUTLER TWP — Ninety-eight new nurses graduated from the Butler County Community College Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health on Thursday, May 9, setting a record for BC3’s largest nursing class.
Joe Brown, 33, a student veteran, was one of the nurses recognized.
Previously, Brown, of Callery, received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Washington and Jefferson College and served in the National Guard as an infantryman and later as a sergeant.
Teamwork, focus and diligence were some of the qualities he described as overlapping between working in the military and as a nurse.
“There’s a strong emphasis on teamwork and accountability,” he said.
“With prior military experience, it staves off reluctance to jump into things headfirst,” he said about the nursing program. “With prior (military) service, some students in this program, you’ll notice they’re just more likely to jump into it from the get-go. Don’t worry about making mistakes. Just make them so you can learn faster.”
At first, Brown said he had reservations about being a nontraditional student and being older than the average nursing student in the program. In his time doing clinical work at Butler Memorial Hospital, he said he enjoyed learning from fellow students and staff.
Brown has since accepted a position working for the intensive care unit at a hospital in Erie County. Until the job starts, Brown said he is looking forward to taking a break after completing the 70-credit program.
The Class of 2024, including Brown, surpasses a record for BC3 — last year, 74 nursing students graduated in the Class of 2023.
“It means that we are putting out really great nurses out into the world,” Heather Darrington, assistant professor, said ahead of the ceremony.
“The nursing shortage … it’s everywhere,” Darrington said. “We really just want to make sure that we are sending out high quality nurses that’ll help alleviate that.”
Darrington said the COVID-19 pandemic changed the dynamic for the profession.
“The responsibilities of nurses have gotten a little bit extra over the last few years,” she said. “We have more patients to take care of, and more higher acuity patients, and it’s demanding.”
But “the big thing is actually caring,” Brown said. “We saw some good and some bad examples, not just in Butler, but around the country at other hospitals. Students have been to hospitals themselves and seen some of the care.”
“You can either have an average experience on what is going to be, probably, the worst days of your life, or hopefully, the person who is taking care of you is providing you with some relief by showing that they care,” he said.
Abby Haluticz, 20, and Addison Ritzert, 20, who are graduates of the 2024 class, both said they have been encouraged by patients and family members to become nurses.
“One of my favorite things is whenever a patient will just say, ‘You are going to be a great nurse one day,’” Ritzert said.
Haluticz has been hired by Shadyside UPMC, while Ritzert will begin working at Butler Memorial Hospital.
“It just feels surreal,” Ritzert said about graduating.
The Chicora native said she chose to become a nurse to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps.
Haluticz, of Kittanning, said she was inspired to enter the field because her mother, also a BC3 graduate, was a nurse.
During the ceremony Thursday afternoon, Patricia Annear, dean of the Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health, gave opening remarks. Nick Neupauer, BC3 president, and Belinda Richardson, provost and vice president for academic affairs, also addressed graduates.
Nursing students also read the nurses’ pledge, which was led by Autumn Rose Cooper Nursing Award recipient Jamie Gallagher.
“(The pledge) is a promise to the community and to our patients,” Darrington said before the ceremony. “That we are working to be the best nurses. We are striving for (our patients) to be the healthiest they can be, both physically and mentally.”
This story was updated at 10:44 a.m. May 16, 2024 to reflect Lauren Cihonski, a member of Butler County Community College’s nursing Class of 2024, gets her pin from assistant professor Heather Darrington in a photo above.
