Description/Overview: Purpose: Essential content areas in baccalaureate nursing curricula include leadership for quality care and globalization of healthcare (AACN, 2008). The process of developing leaders for global health must be initiated early in and throughout the nursing program. This symposium describes our efforts to develop global proficiency and leadership skills among baccalaureate nursing students. Methods: With funds from a HRSA Nursing Workforce Diversity (NWD) grant, we recruit, retain, and mentor students from diverse backgrounds with a focus on community health-related networking and immersion experiences. Results: Over the course of their educational trajectory, the 35 student scholars in this “Keys to Inclusive Leadership in Nursing” (KILN) program have been mentored by faculty and nurse leaders as they facilitate care in community health agencies, serve as officers in student government and leaders in volunteer activities, obtain grants for summer research and enrichment projects, disseminate their findings through published work, contribute to local, regional and international health care policy forums, study in foreign countries, participate in meetings of professional nursing organizations and diversity advisory boards, and work on faculty research as Undergraduate Research Fellows. These activities have broadened students’ global perspectives while cultivating leadership qualities. Conclusion: Faculty will present the community health mentorship program; specific emphasis is placed on the how programmatic structures and processes were designed to facilitate students’ understanding of local and global interconnectivity and social determinants of health. Students will discuss semester abroad programs in Ecuador and South Africa, a summer immersion experience in Switzerland, and an independent study project in Panama, with a focus on lessons learned abroad that inform nursing care in the United States. We conclude with evaluation findings and a discussion of the elements employed to help ensure sustainability of the program.

Learner Objective #1: Describe a non-traditional undergraduate leadership development program that makes connections between health issues in students’ own communities to those of the global community.

Learner Objective #2: Explicate the methods used in program development and sustainability that leverage university, local and global community resources.