Joy Moss is one of the most dedicated professionals that I have every worked with. Most people would say that she gives 110% in all of her work at MC (Methodist College), but truthfully I would say that she gives 200% in everything that she does for MC.
I have worked with Joy for the past 3+ years and have seen her work in many classes. Our first years here, Joy was able to get some great connections and clinical site opportunities for our 370 students that MC still uses today. These new sites allow the students to have a very detailed and comprehensive learning experiences with the pediatric population. Not only do the students have the opportunity to work with this population in the hospital, but now they have many community sites so the students can see the pediatric population in the school settings, office settings, and in specialty facilities such as the Pediatric diabetic resource center for children.
Not only does Joy put forth a great and extensive effort for behind the scenes things, but she also makes a great effort for her students. At MC, our students have many different needs and issues related to school, home, etc. Joy goes above and beyond to tend to all needs. She comes in extra hours to help the students with assignments and projects. While doing this, Joy does not give her students answers, but she makes them think and learn from every experience. She guides their thinking by asking the students questions and engaging them in the content. She makes the students want to learn more about the content, the way she presents the content. She is never demeaning to her students, but has exceptional techniques in helping her students to convert thinking processes into the correct direction.
I received the opportunity to move in with Joy after a couple years working at MC. This has been a fantastic opportunity for me. When I came back from maternity leave I had 25 advisees, and I had never advised before. Joy helped me with several of my advisees to become acclimated with the process. There were also many things that I missed while I was away and she helped reorient me to new changes and spent a lot of extra time working with me on new changes. Not only did Joy do this for me, but she does this for all her peers. She also helps with new faculty orientation.
I have also seen Joy work with many other coworkers throughout MC. She works with staff on setting up things like extracurricular activities and events, pinning, and an extensive amount of other things. She also works with many of her faculty peers. Every day there is a different faculty member looking for Joy for help with something or for guidance. Joy has set up, designed, and written courses with the intent of assisting other faculty. She goes out of her way to help others with their courses even if it has nothing to do with herself. In teaching the HS200 (informatics) course, Joy has found herself being a go to person with computer issues. Many faculty feel very comfortable having Joy help them with a variety of different computer issues from Sakai, to ATI (Assessment Technologies Institute), to general Central Processing Unit issues or internet complications. She does this all above her every day work.
Joy has become the MC go to person for ATI. One of her first semester at MC, she was contacted by administration to help the college with ATI usage and in improving student scores. She has evolved the entire process to making sure that all students are being tracked on ATI and are receiving remediation on ATI. Before Joy took this position, the students were allowed to pass and graduate from MC while receiving below level 1’s on proctored ATI exams, which does not meet the NCLEX standards or a minimal understanding level of the content. Joy has helped implement ATI policies and make it a standard of use with all clinical courses as well as other nursing courses. Joy does counseling with individual students regarding ATI. This is a great service because students are now instructed on how to improve not only their ATI scores, but how to do remediation, what are better study habits, and how to retain learned content. She walks them step by step with individualized plans on how they can not only pass ATI, but become a better student overall. She spends at least a half hour with each student making plans and then sets up follow ups if needed. She also provides them with resources so they have a reference at home as well.
Joy is on so many committees, that I cannot even count or keep track. At the start of every academic year, she tries to simplify he committee work. By the end of the year, she is back up to a tremendous of amount of committee work. Joy is so passionate about her work at MC and her students, that she has a very difficult time not volunteering or saying no to do extra work. Not only is she involved with many organized and formal committees, but she is on many ad hoc, informal, and temporary committees. Joy is such an integral part of MC that many of her co-workers enjoy working with her and nominate her to be on committees. He peers know that she has great insight into ideas and is completely non-judgmental. She researches facts and is a very hard worker in all of her committees. I find myself constantly in the position of nominating to work with Joy because of her work ethic and her overall points of view. Whenever she is in doubt on her perspectives in a committee she researches the concepts and brings forth both sides of the discussion. This allows everyone to see both sides and to not make irrational decisions.
One of the most impressive things that Joy has done for MC is being the coordinator of SNA (Student Nurse Association). Not only has she done a superb job from the faculty perspective, but the students are most appreciative of her work. She has transformed this committee from a staff/faculty ran committee, to a completely student ran committee. The clubs at MC for students are supposed to be student ran and student driven, and Joy has done a great job with this transformation. She is the facilitator of the group, helping with suggestions and helping with their budget. She also helps the students move forward with their ideas. Students have great intentions and plans and before Joy that was all they were. Now that Joy is the faculty advisor for the SNA, the students pursue these and make them true activities. In being with the SNA Joy attends all extracurricular activities for MC no matter what day of the week or time of day. She goes way beyond what is expected of her.
I cannot think of anyone better deserving of this Daisy award. As a nurse educator, Joy is helpful, willing, and exception in everything that she does. She is ALWAYS available to her students and coworkers. Not only does Joy enjoy what she does but she exceeds all expectations in everything that she does.