A Mentoring Success Story: Susan, Jessica & Dianne

For Susan Maier Davis '85 and Dianne Charsha '85, the Wilkes alumni/student mentoring program provided an opportunity to positively impact the future for recent alumna Jessica Freeman '12.  

Susan (MS, RN, CRRN), Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations with SMV Management Company, volunteered to mentor a Wilkes nursing student in the fall of 2011 and was paired with Jessica Freeman, then a senior.   Despite being from Maryland, Susan traveled to campus last year to meet Jessica at the annual alumni/student networking event, Connecting the Dots.  Their relationship continued beyond the conclusion of the mentoring program and Jessica's graduation from Wilkes.  

This summer, the pair met in Philadelphia to celebrate when Jessica passed her boards and became an RN.  They were joined by Dianne (RN, MSN, NNP-BC), Susan's longtime friend and roommate while at Wilkes.  Dianne is the Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services and the Chief Nursing Officer at Cooper Health System in NJ, where Jessica hoped to gain employment.  This interaction paid off for Jessica, who started at Cooper as an RN in late September.

"Through the years Diane and I have both gone on to achieve success in our careers at the top levels in organizations (C-Suite).  It is important to both of us to help others succeed especially in today's environment where finding employment is so difficult even for nurses," she said.

Jessica is not the only Wilkes nursing grad to benefit from Susan's guidance.  She recently helped one of Jessica's friends prepare for an interview at Johns Hopkins... and she landed that job, too.           

Susan, Dianne and Jessica are just three out of the over 300 alumni and 400 students who have participated in the mentoring program since its inception in 2009.   The program has been integrated into psychology, communication studies, business, education and career courses.  This semester, there are 45 alumni and student pairings in the education and career preparation courses and the program will expand to include the social sciences in January.  

If you are interested in mentoring a Wilkes student, please contact program coordinator Mary Simmons '10 at mary.simmons@wilkes.edu or 570-408-7787.  

Pictured:  Dianne Charsha '85, Jessica Freeman '12 and Susan Davis '85