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W

ayne State 
University student 
Tania Miller, who 
helped launch the Alpha Phi 
chapter of Alpha Tau Delta 
fraternity at the College of 
Nursing, grew up in a medical 
family.
Her father was a physician, 
and her mother worked as a 
nurse and midwife.
Still, Miller, 22, didn’t initially 
plan to follow in her parents’ 
footsteps. “It was too easy,
” she 
recalls. “I wanted to make an 
effort to find something else 

that I like.
”
Initially, Miller began 
her college education as a 
psychology major, yet quickly 
realized her career options 
would be limited if she didn’t 
pursue a master’s degree.
She knew she liked science 
and people but was hesitant to 
become a physician because of 
the time commitment between 
eight years of schooling.
Instead, nursing felt like the 
perfect fit. It only required a 
bachelor’s degree, and Miller 
could always expand on her 

career and go back to school in 
the future if needed.

A NEED FOR SUPPORT
Miller began her three-year 
nursing program in 2021 
and received her first job as a 
nursing assistant at Beaumont 
Dearborn. Yet with the 
COVID-19 pandemic in full 
swing, healthcare burnout 
became very real.
It was extremely gratifying 
work, she says, but Miller, who 
is set to graduate in 2024, often 
came home feeling like there 
was still so much work to be 
done, as hospitals nationwide 
were understaffed and 
overwhelmed.
The need for a nursing 
community and support, 
especially at school around 
peers her age going through the 
same experience, couldn’t have 
been greater.
“I remember really wishing 
that there could have been 
some type of organized group 
for me to be a part of me to 
meet people from different 
nursing cohorts,
” Miller 
explains.
With different nursing 
programs available at different 
paces, it was tough to meet 
nursing students outside of 
one’s own cohort.

“
All of those programs are 
very separate,
” Miller says. 
“Nursing is a strenuous degree 
in the sense that you are 
consistently working, and to 
have an outlet with people who 
understand you is really, really 
necessary.
”
Yet, such an outlet didn’t 
exist for the College of Nursing. 
Curious to see what other 
universities were doing, Miller 
began researching online and 
discovered different nursing 
fraternities across the country, 
including Alpha Tau Delta.
Last year, she decided to 
reach out to the fraternity’s 
national secretary to find out 
her options of bringing Alpha 
Tau Delta to Wayne State 
University College of Nursing.

BUILDING A COMMUNITY
After a year of communi-
cation and recruiting interested 
students, and closely working 
with the dean of the nursing 
school, the Alpha Phi chapter of 
Alpha Tau Delta made its way 
to the College of Nursing.
Last semester, it was officially 
established as a fraternity and 
currently includes some 20-25 
members, with another 20-30 
members interested in joining.
A seven-member executive 
board, which Miller leads as 

A Community 
for Nursing 
Students

Wayne State University student 
Tania Miller launches nursing 
fraternity on campus.

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Tania with other nursing students introducing people to Alpha Pi

DECEMBER 21 • 2023 | 41

