Description/Overview: Developing RN to BS students as leaders in a global health future can be rewarding and challenging; yet innovative ways of engaging them in service learning projects, which they own from start to finish, enables faculty mentors and students to apply current knowledge and best practices in leading teams to strengthen a community. This symposium engages participants in exploring the tight but creative process used by one nursing education program. Three complementary perspectives are presented: a faculty perspectives for Service Learning and Critical Reflections, and a student perspective for a patient safety project on hand-off improvements in perioperative care. The glue that brings these strange bedfellows together are critical reflections drawn from Tanner’s (2006) “thinking like a nurse.”

Learner Objective #1: Discuss methods of engaging RN to BS nursing students in critical reflections to develop clinical leadership knowledge and skills.

Learner Objective #2: Explore service learning as a means of developing RN to BS students as future leaders in a global society.