Nursing scholar, softball star snags job at Connecticut hospital

Photos by Lee Ferris

It was weeks before she would receive her diploma from the Mount, but Nursing senior Riley Norwood of East Haven, Conn., could breathe a sigh of relief: She had already earned a job in her field. 

Norwood will be working in Connecticut’s Yale New Haven Hospital as a Registered Nurse in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. She’s also going to be a member of Yale’s Critical Care Nursing Residency Program.

The last four years have been busy for Norwood. She was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau honor society (Nursing) and the Alpha Chi Honor Society (general academics), and she served as president of Chi Alpha Sigma Honor Society (student athletics). She was named an Aquinas Scholar, one of the most prestigious academic awards at the Mount, and she’s been on the college’s Dean’s List for years. She also served as a peer mentor for the Mount’s Nursing Workforce Diversity (NWD) Program and as a nursing peer tutor, among other accomplishments. 

But for many, Norwood was best known on campus as president of the Student Nurses’ Association (SNA), where she organized and participated in events like community blood drives and workshops teaching her fellow nursing students how to administer naloxone, an anti-opioid overdose medicine.

“I was very thrilled and ready for the challenge [of being SNA president],” Norwood said. “I think it really helped me to become a great leader.”

The only thing that rivals Norwood’s devotion to nursing is her love of softball. As a member of the Mount’s softball team, Norwood received the Female Knight of the Year Award from the college’s Athletic Department in both 2022 and 2023, as well as All-Conference honors in the spring of 2023. She was also a member of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) and the college’s Athletic Mental Health Advisory Board. All of these experiences, she noted, shaped her into a more effective communicator and a team player.

Some college athletes find themselves retiring from their sport upon graduation, but not Norwood. After getting settled into her job at Yale New Haven Hospital, she’s planning to take up coaching softball. 

“I’m not sure whether that would be at the travel, high school, or college level,” she explained. “[But] I want to give back to the sport that has taught me so much.”

All of her professors at the Mount were wonderful, Norwood said, including Lynette DeBellis, associate professor of Nursing and Chair of the School of Nursing. DeBellis helped her to schedule Nursing and clinical work around her softball career, enabling her to continue being a student athlete at the college. DeBellis has also been an inspiration for her academically, serving as Norwood’s mentor for her Honors Program research project, “The Effect of Non-Pharmacological vs. Pharmacological Interventions on ICU Delirium.”

“Dr. DeBellis has been extremely helpful to me throughout my nursing journey,” Norwood said. “I would not be here in the position I am in without her support and guidance…she has been an endless supporter of SNA and has helped me tremendously in my role as president.”

Like any grad, Norwood is excited about the new challenges on the horizon. But she will never forget the friends she met along the way. 

“I will miss all of my friends that I have made here at the Mount,” she explained. “I have loved living just down the hall from them throughout the four years.”