An overview of a school of nursing in Haiti and the status of health care in Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake will be the focus of a guest lecture at Hope College on Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 4 p.m. in Room 1000 of the A. Paul Schaap Science Center. 

The public is invited. Admission is free. 

The presentation will be by Shirley Dieuveille, who is assistant dean of the Faculty of Nursing Science of the Episcopal University of Haiti (FSIL), and Marah Armand, who is a member of the FSIL faculty.  Dieuveille and Armand are visiting Hope from Sunday, Sept. 11, through Thursday, Sept. 22, to learn about how the college's nursing program is structured and administered. 

FSIL (Faculte des Sciences Infirmieres de l'Universite Episcopale d'Haiti in Leogane) is a four-year school of nursing that began in 2005 and graduated its first class with baccalaureate degrees in 2009.  Since it started, the program has graduated 50 nurses, all working in Haiti 

Leogane, where the school is located, was near the epicenter of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. 

The Hope nursing program's ties with FSIL have developed through the Ann Arbor-based Haiti Nursing Foundation, which supports the advancement of nursing in Haiti with a primary focus on FSIL.  Hope faculty member Dr. Susan Dunn, associate professor of nursing and chairperson of the department, was among those invited to attend a U.S./Haiti nursing summit in Florida in September 2010, where she participated in developing plans for future collaborations between U.S. and Haiti nursing schools. 

During their two-weeks in Holland, Dieuveille and Armand are meeting with Hope faculty, students and administrators, observing a variety of nursing classes and visiting health care agencies in the community. 

The A. Paul Schaap Science Center is located at 35 E. 12th St., at 12th Street and College Avenue.