Page 17 - Laker Connection Fall 2016

About the author
Dr. Lisa Eichelberger has worked at Clayton State for 20 years, 11 of those as Dean of the College of Health. Eichelberger received her B.S.N., M.S.N., Ph.D. degrees from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and previously served as dean of Mississippi College School of Nursing from 1987 to 1995. Prior
to serving as dean at Mississippi, she was the Assistant Dean of the School of Nursing at Auburn University and a faculty member at the University of Alabama and Auburn University.
Creative even outside of the classroom, Eichelberger enjoys French heirloom hand sewing, smocking, and watercolor painting.
Deepening theoretical understanding through mandalas
Mandala art is a creative tool used to illustrate the concept of nursing theory. Mandalas have a centralized focal point with many surrounding points of interests. This concept is much like many nursing theories. Using mandala art, students are encouraged to pull out the central idea and the supporting concepts. Students can then beautifully arrange these ideas artistically. This allows students to deepen their understanding of theory through analysis and applying it to the deeply concentric form of mandala art.
This pointillism
was created by a undergraduate student to illustrate beginning nursing student’s impression of nursing philosophies, fall, 2004.
Close up and distant perspective through pointillism
Pointillism art is used in to illustrate nursing theories that are considered philosophies, which reflect broad and multidimensional ideas of morality, ethical behaviors, and professional experience. Pointillism art is created with many points of color that seemingly merge together when viewed. Nurses often view the philosophical theories with a similar concept...they may have different impressions on the theory and often merge personal experience with the points of the theory. Pointillism is used in a couple senses with the close up and far away view. Students similarly are asked to approach the idea in a close up view with listing the individual points or ideas of the theory. After they have done this task, students approach the theory from a distance creating the overall idea and theory by creating the overall artistic representation using pointillism art.
Student illustration, a Leininger mandala. We really
ae a global community. Our cultures overlap and are interwoven. The shapes are identical and no one is better or more important than the other. The hearts represent caring, which is non-culture-specific. Caring is universal. Courtesy of Amy Davis Arreaza, MSN, FNP-BC.
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