Southwestern Michigan College this week welcomed 18 new nurses to America’s largest healthcare profession. It celebrated the graduation of the nursing program students on Thursday. They were honored for completing their Associate of Applied Science Degree in Nursing, which prepares them for a national license as a registered nurse. The December of 2021 class, the first to be pinned in the theatre of the Dale Lyons Building on SMC’s Dowagiac campus since 2019 due to COVID, joins the ranks of 3,152 SMC nursing graduates. There are more than 4.2 million registered nurses in the U.S. Dr. Melissa Kennedy, dean of the School of Nursing, says this group of graduates is special in that it enters the nursing profession in the middle of a pandemic. As a result, she said the new nurses are going to face even bigger challenges as they begin their time in the field, asking all to support them.
December graduates include:
Beth Ammerman of Lawton
Dana Bolinger of Stevensville
Dianna Carroll of Benton Harbor
Theresa Conn of Elkhart
McKenzie Creed of Mishawaka
Brynn Duffy of Hartford
Meagan Herlein of Constantine
Rachel Limberopoulos of Niles
Ally McIntee of Niles
Paige Owen of Berrien Springs
Maria Pereira of St. Joseph
Lindsey Phillips of Three Rivers
Nino Pochkhua of Berrien Center
Karissa Porter of Berrien Center
Barbara Reese of Niles
Hunter Rieck of Edwardsburg
Jamie Sallak of Niles
Kathleen Weldy of South Bend
