“TCNJ believes in the transformative power of education to develop critical thinkers, responsible citizens, and lifelong learners and leaders.”
Many graduates of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) have moved on to bigger and better things because of the education and assistance they received during their time at this college. These graduates have achieved leadership opportunities, became more responsible individuals, and became lifelong creative learners. One of these people includes the person that I have looked up to the most ever since I was born: Hattie McKelvey (my fantastic mom). After she graduated from TCNJ in 1993, she has done some great things that warrant a clear representation of what TCNJ wants its graduates to be like. She is very successful, and to this day, still yearns to do even more in her life. I got the chance to interview her and learn more about how TCNJ prepared her and gave her assistance in achieving all the things she has accomplished. Without further ado, let’s delve into it!
Interviewer: What was your area of study while at TCNJ and what is your current career position? Also, how have you demonstrated leadership in this position?
Alumna: My area of study while at TCNJ was Nursing. My current position is senior director of a medical information and risk management team at Johnson and Johnson. I’ve demonstrated leadership in the following ways: I have ensured that I have a diverse talent that works in our team. I also have exhibited service leadership by making sure that we put our customers and patients first in everything that we do. And lastly, I have exhibited enterprise leadership where I look at the bigger picture and ensure that not only my team benefits from the projects we put in place, but that other teams across Johnson and Johnson benefit from the programs and projects that we take on in our organization.
Interviewer: Can you tell us about some of the different job positions you have held after you graduated from TCNJ that led you to the job position you’re in now?
Alumna: I was a registered nurse working in a hospital medical-surgical unit. I also used my nursing to work in-home healthcare and I did patient and caregiver education. I also used my nursing to move into the pharmaceutical sector where I was a medical information specialist and helped patients and healthcare professionals, caregivers, and whoever calls us understand the efficacies of the products that we manufacture. I also was lucky enough to do things outside of my nursing. I was an information technologist for a number of years working on developing web digital assets, compliance and quality, information security, and I worked in a number of other compliance areas such as Sarbanes Oxley (SOCKS) which is financial compliance. I also worked in computer systems validation and I’ve done work to ensure good manufacturing practices or GXP, health care compliance, and privacy at a number of different companies at Johnson and Johnson across the US, Canada, and Latin America to ensure that patients’ and customers’ privacy was secured. I even got to live in another country, Canada, and work in a medical affairs organization. I was able to use my technology background, my nursing background to put in place programs and projects in medical affairs. Now, I work in the United States and I lead a team of almost over 100 people where we provide medical information to customers and patients and ensure that certain products have safety programs. I also put together a global team to answer medical inquiries about the COVID 19 Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
Interviewer: How did TCNJ prepare you to get to where you are now?
Alumna: I think TCNJ prepared me with nursing as my foundation because I was able to work in the clinical field directly in the hospital doing patient care and was able to transfer that knowledge, so I had some transferable skills in how to do patient care assessments and the quality and compliance of patient care and always have that servant leadership making sure that I’m supporting and helping someone that needs my help. All of that foundation helped me with my different roles because it allowed me to do assessments and be a better project manager. It helped me to understand the most important thing: putting the patients first.
Interviewer: Can you tell us some of the things that you still use or carry with you today that you learned from TCNJ?
Alumna: One of the things I still carry with me is the EOF program. I could not get accepted because of the finances, but they did let me participate in the programming and it was great to have a lot of those leadership programs and connect with people who look like me and who had similar backgrounds as me. I also joined a sorority called Zeta Phi Beta which helped me really understand the importance of community service and sisterhood. Also, understanding the value of hard work. Nursing wasn’t easy, so I had to learn how to prioritize. I had to learn how to pace my studying on my own because if I didn’t, I would have never passed the nursing exam because I needed to be an independent thinker and learner at the same time knowing how to work with others, so it also showed me teamwork.
Interviewer: Why did you choose TCNJ and what are some of the classes that stood out to you?
Alumna: I chose TCNJ because they have a really strong nursing program and a pretty good rate of passage for the nursing exams. The class that stood out was a computer class. It was the early time of computers, but it was interesting to me. One of the other classes that stood out was anatomy and physiology. When we got to work on the cats, I didn’t like to work on the cats because I love cats, but it really did help me understand human anatomy, so I think it was a good class.
Interviewer: What is something you would have done differently if you could go back in time and be a college student again?
Alumna: Prioritization and focus. I got caught up in other activities and other things and sometimes I lost focus on my studies. The other thing is if I could do it again, I wouldn’t have worked. I probably would have gone full time so that I could go straight through college instead of going part-time. It took a little longer and it was a distraction to have all those other things going on in my life.
Interviewer: What advice would you give an aspiring TCNJ graduate who doesn’t know where they see themselves going in the future in terms of their career and leadership opportunities?
Alumna: I would tell them that continuous learning is a great thing. That you don’t have to put yourself in a box. If you try one thing and it’s not for you, it’s ok. You haven’t failed. That means you just learned that it’s not for you and you should think about something else. So if you don’t do well or fail, fail forward instead of backward. Failing is just a way of learning lessons. So do something that you love and something that you are passionate about and don’t have any regrets.
Interviewer: Now going back to TCNJ, how has it changed and developed from what you remembered?
Alumna: It has expanded its offerings on campus and to the students. I love Campus Town. It’s a way to get away, but not get away so far. It’s a nice break for the kids to get over there to Campus Town. They call it off-campus, so I love that they call it that even though it’s right there. It just gives you the illusion of you going somewhere else and taking a breath from all your classes. I also like all the activities and clubs. I like the multicultural center. I know we had clubs but we didn’t have as many clubs as they have today, which I think is fantastic. There are a lot more services and offerings, I love the mental health wellness services. I think that is amazing because so many kids struggle when they’re in college. I wish I had access to that when I was there. The support they’re giving the kids is really great.
I want to give a huge thank you to Hattie McKelvey for giving me the time to interview her about all the wondrous things she has done and accomplished. She is truly one of the most inspirational people I and so many others have ever met because of her grit and her willingness to keep looking for new opportunities to pursue and not stopping even if she knows she is going to make a risky move. I got to learn so much about her journey and I’m so grateful that I’ll one-day graduate from TCNJ and do great things as she did with my education. Thank you again to her and this concludes Where Are They Now: Looking into the Alumni of TCNJ.