Unleashed: Community

Muna Alali knows the importance of having a community at the Michigan State University College of Nursing. 

Since childhood, Alali loved and cared for her cousins, she noticed that nurses were the ones who interacted with patients more. When Alali was sick, it was her nurse who took care of her. It was then that she decided to pursue nursing.  

Alali finished her degree in Bachelor of Science in Nursing in Saudi Arabia, then started to look at graduate school in the United States. Alali picked MSU because of its reputation as a research university. She hopes to take the research skills she learned at the college and apply them when she moves back to Saudi Arabia. 

“The purpose of my study is to evaluate the psychosocial factor of the theory of blind behavior of Saudi female adolescents,” says Alali. “In the all-female schools, there is a lack of physical activity and in the community in general. There is an urgent need to improve the levels of girls’ physical activity in the country.” 

Because of the pandemic, Alali has shifted how she is collecting data from in person to being fully online through a Qualtrics survey program. Alali’s goal is to recruit 200 participants for her study. 

Alali is used to a challenge. She got her Master of Science in Nursing at Oklahoma State University, and then was accepted to MSU to finish her PhD but had to return to Saudi Arabia. While back home, Alali worked in the intensive care unit for a few years and then was able to land a scholarship from her country to come back to MSU to finish her education.

“At the beginning it was tough to start a PhD in the United States,” Alali noted. “But with my persistence and all of the faculty support I received, I have already had successes and have had a lot of improvement after four years.” 

Dr. Lorraine Robbins, the college’s PhD Program director, refers to Alali as a “rockstar.” 

“She has a lot of successes. For example, she published her paper in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing, and it's on relatedness and physical activity among adolescents,” Robbins said. “She is also very caring and works well with others. She's a great team player, which is important in research.”

Alali has enjoyed networking with faculty members, in and outside MSU. She has had the honor of attending the annual Midwest Nursing Research Society (MNRS) conference to connect with students and faculty across the region, who also share the same passion and research that Alali is working on. This has helped build her community and create resources for future research.

“The college connects us with faculty every month by meeting them in the College of Nursing to talk with them and share our experience together.” Alali explained, “What I like about the program is having a faculty and staff that support me through the journey of learning how to conduct research”

Robbins said building that community is key to succeeding in research.

“I have a research team that includes a kinesiologist, a registered dietitian and a biostatistician, and that is very helpful for nursing students to be involved in, our doctoral students, particularly because they get exposure to working with their team. And then they're involved in a variety of experiences.”

At the college, Alali spends much of her time in the Main Library on campus. Spending hours studying and preparing herself for some of the difficult tasks ahead of her in the PhD program. Having knowledgeable librarians to point her in the right direction has also been a huge asset to Alali.. 

Alali’s long-term goal After graduating from the college, is to return home to Saudi Arabia to work in academia. 

“There is an urgent need for graduates from other countries such as United States to go back to teach students,” Alali explained. 

Alali will always be thankful for her time here at MSU.

“The MSU College of Nursing helped unleash my community here,” she said.