Pursue Your Purpose

When Greg Schuster was a student at LaBrae Middle School in Leavittsburg, he never dreamed he would return a decade later and become an award-winning teacher and coach. In May, this would-be architect was honored with the 2019 Early Career Alumni Award during Kent State University Geauga Campus and Regional Academic Center annual commencement ceremonies.

Nearly half (44 percent) of the nurses in Northeast Ohio are graduates of the Kent State University College of Nursing. As a regional campus, Kent State University Geauga Campus has become an expanding nursing workforce pipeline for many healthcare organizations throughout the region. Even before they earn their degrees, Kent State Geauga students in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program are being hired as nursing interns throughout the University Hospitals healthcare network.

Bryan Murfello has always been fascinated by the medical field because, as he says, “It’s a career choice that is ever evolving and changing.” 

Considering that the scope of career options in medicine is so varied, he has been on a journey of exploration and discovery since graduating from high school. Kent State Geauga has helped Murfello to evolve and change as he navigates a fulfilling career path in modern medicine.

Ronda McCaskey and Caitlyn Horvath are best friends who went through the nursing program together and graduated one year apart with Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees from Kent State University’s Geauga Campus. Now they are both intensive care nurses. But they also happen to be mother and daughter.

For mom Ronda, nursing was a life calling that got deferred by early marriage and raising a family; for daughter Caitlyn, nursing was an unexpected discovery made along the way.