Martínez-Rogers focuses on diversity in nursing school

Upon her arrival at IU-Bloomington's School of Nursing from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA), Norma Martínez-Rogers didn't allow a moment to slip by before she began making waves in the community. She started with her nursing students in a course on multicultural awareness. They quickly found themselves involved in a variety of activities that led them far beyond the classroom walls: interviewing older adults in the area to learn about local health beliefs and folk remedies, drawing representations of their own cultures, gathering information from family members to construct genograms and family history presentations, visiting Indiana migrant labor camps to learn about the physical hardships and other challenges endured by the primarily Mexican-American agricultural and factory workers who come to live in the camps six months each year.

Dr. Martínez-Rogers pursued her own research interests in women's health issues and domestic violence by traveling to nearby Brown County to sit in on rural community association meetings and talk with women there about health concerns, and by visiting Middleway House, a local shelter for women and children fleeing domestic violence.

Dr. Joyce Krothe, Director of the School of Nursing in Bloomington, and Dr. Elizabeth Lion of the nursing faculty both served as mentors for Dr. Martínez-Rogers, and they cooperatively arranged for her to visit offices concerned with diversity on campus, including Affirmative Action, Office of Diversity Programs, International Studies, and the office of Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Student Support Services. Norma repaid some of the welcome and guidance she received here by conducting a cultural diversity workshop for the faculty and staff of the School of Nursing. A major focus of this workshop was to teach faculty and staff to assume leadership roles in modeling for their students the need to accept, understand, and appreciate diversity.

Before earning her Ph.D. from University of Texas-Austin in 1995 in the field of Educational Curriculum and Instruction and before taking her current position as a faculty member of UTHSCSA, Dr. Martínez-Rogers already held an MSN in Psychiatric Nursing and an MA in Counseling. This background led her over the last 30 years to work in a variety of capacities across Texas, including counselor, teacher, Director of Psychiatric Nursing Services at Villa Rosa Psychiatric Hospital in San Antonio, and Major, Psychiatric Nurse Specialist/Psychiatric Liaison for Operation Desert Storm with the Army Nurse Corps stationed at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in Ft. Bliss, Texas.

Dr. Martínez-Rogers is enthusiastic about her experience in Bloomington, and hopes to have the opportunity in the future to return to do more work with the migrant workers in the Indiana fields. "I could never leave Texas for good," Martínez-Rogers confesses, "but I have learned a lot about myself here, and I have met some wonderful people in Bloomington."