June 9, 2014

On May 3, the Drexel University Alumni Association held its annual Alumni Association Awards Ceremony. Several current students and alumni from the College of Nursing and Health Professions were presented with awards from the Association, including Andrew DeMaio, Abigail Warner, Mahmoud Shurbaji, and Susan Bastable.

Andrew DeMaio, BSN ’16, received the Alumni Legacy Scholarship. DeMaio is a Pennoni Honors College student and has been included on the Dean’s List since 2012. He has served as a nursing tutor in the Center for Academic Success and is a member of the Student Nurses Association of Pennsylvania. As president of the Drexel Male Nurses Association, DeMaio helped organize a volunteer project with The Other Carpenter, a nonprofit offshoot of Habitat for Humanity. He has also worked with high school guidance counselors to promote nursing to male students and presented research at the national conference for the American Assembly for Men in Nursing. DeMaio’s father is a member of the Drexel Class of 1985.

Abigal Warner, BSN ’17, also received the Alumni Legacy Scholarship. Warner is a Pennoni Honors College student, has been named to the Dean’s List since her first term at Drexel, and has been inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society for Nursing and the Phi Eta Sigma Honors Society. Warner is Planning Chair for the Drexel chapter of the Student Nurses Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP). In 2013, Warner received the Student Nurses Association of Pennsylvania’s Outstanding Inductee Award and a Drexel Career Management Certificate of Merit. Warner’s father is a member of the Drexel Class of 1989.

Mahmoud Shurbaji, Health Services Administration ’15, received both the Alumni Leadership Scholarship and the Outstanding Student Award. Shurbaji was instrumental in re-invigorating the College of Nursing and Health Professions Student Senate as its Public Relations Chair in 2011, which has become a thriving resource for students. A member of Drexel’s men’s varsity crew team, Shurbaji has also served as a Student Athletic Advisory Committee representative, an Athletics Representative on the IntraFraternity Council, and as a New Student Orientation Leader. In 2013, Shurbaji was elected President of the Undergraduate Student Government Association (USGA) and was included in the “Who’s Who Among American Universities and Colleges.”

Susan Bastable, PhD, RN ’69, is the founding Chair of the Department of Nursing at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. In 2004, she established the undergraduate RN-BSN Program and the Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing (DDPN), which is a unique articulation model supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. At the graduate level, she has created the Master of Science degree programs in Nursing Education, Nursing Administration, Gerontology, Palliative Care, and Informatics, and five post-master’s certificate programs, a post-baccalaureate RN-MS option, and a BS-MS bridge program. Currently, her energies are directed toward building the college’s first Family Nurse Practitioner Program to begin in 2015. Bastable has also authored several books and teaches students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.