Alumni Spotlight: Mona Haimour, MPH

Alumni Spotlight, Mona Haimour
Mona Haimour, RN, BScN, MSN, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Canada. As a 2016 inductee to UNE’s Chapter of the Delta Omega Honor Society, she also proved herself to be one of UNE’s brightest Master of Public Health students. From Jordan to Canada Originally from Jordan, Mona earned her Registered Nurse certification and actively practiced as an RN in the area of women’s health, maternal child health and pediatrics for many years there. It was in Jordan that she also earned her Master of Science in Nursing, and began to shift her work from nursing practice to nursing education. After working and volunteering across the Middle…

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Resource Spotlight: Student Academic Success Center (SASC)

Lori Rand, Online Writing Specialist (left) and Henri Moser Online Learning Specialist (right)
The Student Academic Success Center (SASC) at UNE is a tutoring resource for UNE students, online and on-ground alike. Brenda Edmands, Coordinator of SASC on the Portland Campus and for the online programs, shares how SASC follows the best practices of academic support, and how they work toward fulfilling their mission of helping students become successful, independent, lifelong learners. Can you give me an overview of what SASC is, and what you offer to our online students? Sure! SASC stands for the Student Academic Success Center, and we serve both on-campus and online students. On the Portland Campus, in addition to staff who focus on supporting the Portland Campus students, who are primarily enrolled in graduate-level programs in the…

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How to Communicate Effectively With Your Instructor

How to Communicate Effectively With Your Instructor
Communication is complicated, especially in a learning atmosphere where the classwork is 100% online. In order to help students and instructors communicate more effectively via technology, we have assembled a few tactics and tips for communicating efficiently and successfully. Each instructor has their own individual preferences about the following guidelines, so when in doubt, ask your instructor about their online communication preferences. We’re all on the same team Instructors want their students to succeed and learn course material, while students want to do well and get on to their post-graduate lives in their field. There are no perfect instructors or students here, but our goals are complementary. How can we accomplish these goals better together? In the online communication age,…

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Student Support at UNE Online

Student support
At UNE Online, we believe that a successful student is a supported student. To that end, we offer a variety of academic, technical, and administrative support elements that are purposefully woven into the fabric of our college and specifically designed to assist and support students along their academic journey. Right from the beginning, our enrollment counselors do their best to make sure that applicants are a good fit for the program to which they are applying. Upon acceptance into a UNE Online program, each student is assigned to a dedicated Student Support Specialist. These Support Specialists function as that student’s primary contact within the UNE Online College of Graduate & Professional Studies (CGPS), providing support and acting as an advocate…

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Learning efficiently: 6 steps to success in your online graduate education

6 tips to becoming a successful online student
The best thing about a self-paced program is that its self-paced. That’s also the worst thing about online learning. You’re a working professional, and odds are, you’ve worked from home before. Studying at home, just like working from home, is wonderful, convenient, and comfortable. It’s also easy to get off track. 6 strategies for success in online graduate classes 1. Turn off the distractions It’s tempting to play music or have a television on as background noise, and for some people, it can help set a relaxing environment, but the minute you find yourself distracted by it – turn it off. It may also help to visually pare down your study environment. I also came across some distraction-free writing tools…

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Four Tips for Staying On Track In a Self-Paced Course

Staying on Track in a Self-Paced Course
Online learning can be an ideal way to pursue higher education while shuffling the many demands of life, work, and personal circumstances. Here at UNE, we offer many online learning programs, including the science and math prerequisite courses. These courses are designed for students who wish to enter a health professions program, but need prerequisite courses in order to complete their graduate school application. Beyond the convenience of online accessibility, UNE’s science and math prerequisite courses are also self-paced. This means that while students have a set timeframe to complete the course within, they are able complete it earlier by determining the pace and timing of the content delivery, assignments, and exam completion. We pride ourselves on a student-centered approach…

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6 Communication Rules for Success in Online Student Groups

Group Project
“In this course you will have a group project…” I think it is fair to say we’ve all been let down by a working group or by individual team members. No matter the setting, there seems to be an aura of dread when group projects are announced.  Add in the fact that online graduate students work within virtual spaces, and it is easy to understand why nervousness sets in. With a few simple communication rules, the group experience can become one of the highlights of your online education. The foundations of great group projects… Here at the University of New England, we value appropriate and productive group experiences because we are preparing students for the modern workplace – and teamwork…

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Ed.D. Student Ben Luce published in professional journal

Ben Luce, Ed.D.
Benjamin Luce, a student in the University of New England’s online doctoral program, was recently published in the American Journal of Distance Education. Benjamin interviewed Bryan Alexander, a leading thinker and writer in issues of education and technology. Alexander is a senior fellow for the National Institute of Technology in Liberal Education. The two discuss many issues relating to technology and its place in modern education – including social media, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), history of technology in education, distance education, and much more. For those with institutional access to the American Journal of Distance Education, the interview can be found here. Check with your library to see if you have access to the periodical…

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Sailing the Academic Waters with Student Support Specialists

Sailboat in fog, photo by Elizabeth Benz
Student support specialists are intrinsic to the success of our students. The other day I sat on the Maine coast, not too far from the UNE campus, and watched a tall ship come into port. As usual, many other boats greeted the tall ship and escorted it into the harbor. Complete with a lighthouse, this nautical scene made me think about the differences between traditional student support and our online student support at UNE. If that analogy sounds impossible… let me explain. Many schools only tend to the ports – that is, beginning and end of the journey. Think about it. Schools always offer a robust orientation and commencement with all the bells and whistles. UNE offers those, too. However,…

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A Photo Journey of the 2016 UNE Hooding Ceremony

UNE Online Hooding and Graduation 2016
Each spring, the College of Graduate and Professional Studies holds a Hooding ceremony to honor doctoral and master’s graduates and celebrate the successful completion of their studies. The Hooding ceremony is not meant to replace the university-wide commencement. Rather, it is a special time to come together to meet your fellow students, Faculty, Program Managers and Student Support Specialists for the first time, and celebrate the fact that you’ve completed this phase of your journey. Hooding at UNE is a heartwarming and sometimes emotional event. Connections are made, friendships cemented, milestones met. It’s a time that UNE sets aside to specifically to honor you – we are so, so very proud of you. About the 2016 UNE Hooding Ceremony The…

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Student Spotlight: Katy Krings, MPH – Public Health Program

Katy Krings, MPH
Katy Krings is in her final semester of the MPH program and is an excellent example of how online education can be used as a powerful tool to reach qualified individuals who wouldn’t otherwise have access to higher education. Originally from Wisconsin, Katy now lives and works as a public health nurse in rural Southwest Alaska. In fact, the area in which Katy works is so remote that her patients are not accessible by road or boat for much of the year – she has to fly between these arctic villages to provide her patients with care and public health education. Now that’s going the extra mile. Some background on Katy and her career Katy discovered Public Health nursing after…

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