IT Woman of the Year Nominee:

Dr. Judith Vera Treschuk

Associate Professor in Nursing,
Roberts Wesleyan College

Dr. Judith Vera Treschuk is an Associate Professor in Nursing at Roberts Wesleyan College and adjunct faculty for the University of Phoenix Online. She has a BS & MS in Nursing from the University of Connecticut and a PhD from the University of Rhode Island. She has also completed the Indiana University School of Nursing's Teaching and Learning in a Web-Based Courses certificate program and also completed an intensive four-week training program through the University of Phoenix for teaching online nursing courses in the masters program.

Dr. Treschuk currently teaches nursing theory in the University of Phoenix graduate program in nursing and teaching online courses in assessment and community health for Excelsior College. She has developed a hybrid online course in Informatics and use online discussion groups in all graduate level courses she teaches. Dr. Treschuk has been an active participant in the technology committee at Roberts Wesleyan College and is considered a leader in the implementation of online classes.

As an academic nurse educator, certification recognizes nursing education as a specialty area of practice and demonstrates expertise in this role. Dr. Treschuk has been a full time nurse educator for the past seven years and has experience with curriculum and course development, teaching strategies, testing, and learning theory. She has developed skills and expertise both in online facilitation of learning and facilitation in the land classroom and has been recognized by her peers as a master teacher. Student evaluations of her facilitation of learning have been outstanding.

Healthcare is immersed in technology and keeping up with the current state is a daunting task, especially for nurses who were not traditionally trained in the area of technology. Dr. Treschuk takes away the fear and designs course work that allows working nurses to stay at home and utilize their computers instead of being present in the traditional classroom setting. Dr. Treschuk's downloads pictures of all class participants, clearly articulates her expectations, designs attainable objectives, and ensures that every class participant is on-board. Her students are afforded the opportunity to study from home and design their own Webquest in addition to working in groups to design a Wiki. Dr. Treschuk monitors the students' progress with daily oversight and feedback. They learn the value of informatics and its relationship to practice and research in the field of nursing seeing first-hand the emerging trends in information technology and its utilization in clinical management, Healthcare administration, education, and research. Her students learn how to effectively function in today's Healthcare IT environment.