New Program, New Face: Dean Bridgette Winslow and the Institute for Pre-Health and Wellness
Defiance College is welcoming the Institute for Pre-Health and Wellness Studies to its campus this semester with hopes of bettering the college lives of its students.
In a newsletter similar to the one that will be sent to students soon, Dean Bridgette Winslow describes that the Institute’s purpose is to “provide prospective and current students with additional support in advising, career planning and graduate school acceptance”. The Institute is In an interview, Winslow established that she has a special place in her heart for student engagement and plans on working closely with both students and faculty as extra support to better the educational track of the students. The Institute will also work to share the number of opportunities there are for students interested in the medical field, as described in the newsletter.
The newsletter details five goals for the Institute including recruiting students for health and wellness studies, increasing retention, increasing research and internship opportunities, funding academic programming and developing resources for research through fundraising and grant writing efforts. Dean Winslow has already started working with students in an effort to move forward to these goals. She will also be working closely with undecided and freshman students in order to help start their careers on the right foot.
Winslow explains that she wants to start portfolios for students as they enter their freshman year and work to better set their foundation for the professional world. Winslow states this is necessary in order to “set yourself apart from another applicant”. Freshman will work with both their advisors for this goal. Then sophomore year, Winslow wants the students the Institute works with to start looking in the McMaster School for Advancing Humanity, potential research and internship opportunities. Along with this, the students will start to prep for Graduate school tests such as the MCAT or the GRE. Junior year the attention is more on developing the resume through more learning opportunities. Finally, in the senior year, the Institute will focus on developing interviewing skills and preparing to move into the job force.
With academic programming, the Institute is hosting and viewing and discussion of the documentary Icarus, a documentary on athletic doping and the Russian Olympics scandal at the Sochi Olympic Games. The newsletter, that will be sent to students shortly, details other academic programming opportunities that will be offered by the Institute.
Winslow states her biggest personal goal for the Institute is to “grow the number of pre-health and wellness students that we have on campus. I want to get out and expose the high schools to all of the programs we have and the quality of those programs”. She states, following meeting with the Molecular Biology students on-campus, that “I was floored at the level of compassion the students had and the passion that they had for their field”. She wants to further develop this compassion, that she states “comes from our faculty” and show the world just how great the programs are here at Defiance.
Dean Bridgette Winslow is a Northwest Ohio native, graduating high school in Bryan. The mother of three graduated with her undergrad at the University of Toledo in Sports Administration and later with her Masters there in Guidance and Counseling, focusing on athletes and mental health. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration at UT as well. Following a period of living in Minnesota with her family, she was made aware of the job offer for the Institute of Pre-Health and Wellness. She had previously worked at Adrian College as a registrar and later as the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs under Dr. Agnes Caldwell, Defiance’s current Dean of Academic Affairs. Following a job opportunity opening up, Dr. Caldwell contacted her about applying. Dean Winslow stated in her interview that she has a strong love for student engagement and the inspiring stories that Defiance’s students have to share stating, “the stories of our students are phenomenal”. Dean Winslow’s office is located across from the Registrar’s office in the Serrick Center.
Written by Jordan Osborne
