As this year (finally) comes to a close, the MyNRMN Team is hard at work on new enhancements and features for 2021. In the new year we’ll announce the things to come, but for now I’d like to look back at some of the accomplishments from this year.
Prior to the pandemic, the MyNRMN Team was working on multiple new features and resources, but then made the decision to switch and focus on what would be most needed as the world transitioned online. Within a couple weeks of the shelter-in-place orders, MyNRMN launched the “Schedule a Video Call” feature, providing a secure space for face-to-face calls with multiple users while so many other video calling services encountered hacks into the conversations. The “Schedule a Video Call” feature provided another form of communication for our users allowing them to communicate fully within MyNRMN.
Since the Fall of 2019, the NRMN team had been working on what became the NRMN Unconscious Bias Course, enabling MyNRMN to launch the course at the end of July. The day this course was announced in the NRMN Newsletter, over 1,000 people accessed the course website, informing us know that it was time to upgrade our servers for what was to come. Five months after the launch of the NRMN Unconscious Bias Course, we’ve seen nearly 700 people enroll in the course. We also found out that many schools asked their students and admission offices to take the course and submit their completion certificate for credit. We are so proud of this course and all of the hard work that went into it from Dr. Mirabelle Fernandez-Paul, Dr. Linda Solis, the University of North Texas Health Science Center’s Center for Innovative Learning, and the NRMN team.
Finally, despite everything that has happened in 2020, we’ve seen resilience, motivation, and persistence within the STEMM fields as seen through the growth in the MyNRMN community. At the end of February, before the shelter-in-place orders started in the United States, we were very proud of NRMN’s growth of over 14,000 members since its inception in 2014. However, since the transition online, we have seen a growth of 3,209 NRMN members, raising our MyNRMN community to 17,529 (as of 12/14/2020). In the face of uncertainty, research and the desire for knowledge persists. Seeing the numbers of people striving to continue, move forward, and work through the challenges is inspiring! The MyNRMN team cannot wait to show you what we have in store for you in 2021!
Katie Stinson, NRMN Virtual Engagement Strategist
