Though she is just beginning her Carleton career, Edin Xu ’26 has already gained hands-on experience in the medical profession. By participating in the certified nursing assistant program offered through the college’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE), Edin has been able to attain the knowledge of navigating a stressful hospital environment.
“Being hired as a CNA certainly helps with the [medical school] application process,” says Edin, who aspires to become a physician.
Edin discovered the program, called HeartCert CNA, through Pam Middleton, Carleton’s pre-health advisor, and her friends in chemistry class. Edin worked through winter term on HeartCert’s online program before corroborating this knowledge at Northfield Hospital.
Like many other participants in the CNA program, Edin received funding thanks to Carleton alumni Eric Carlson ’66 and Mimi Carlson ’66. The couple created the Eric ’66 and Mimi ’66 Carlson Endowed Fund for the Center for Community and Civic Engagement in 2022 to support community initiatives through experiential learning with an emphasis on programs that support food and environmental justice, educational equity, health and belonging, peace, conflict and democracy, and community-based work-study programs. For the Carlsons, experiential learning is valuable because it provides opportunities for students to engage with the community and generate positive social change.
Such unique opportunities weren’t always present for Carls. “There was very little that was readily available to Mimi and me in terms of experiential learning when we were at Carleton in the ’60s,” Eric Carlson says.
HeartCert has now been offered at Carleton for two years. The CCCE had been trying to expand opportunities for students to explore the medical field for a few years, says Erica Zweifel, assistant director for community impact at the CCCE, but volunteering was out of the question during the COVID-19 pandemic. But there was still a clear need for CNAs in the community. So with the Carlsons’ generosity, in 2022 the first cohort of 10 Carls were trained as CNAs. To date 29 Carls have completed the program, which consists of 43 hours of asynchronous online training prior to 35 hours of classroom training. Students may request up to $1,000 in funding to volunteer in the Rice County community. Most students completing HeartCert, Zweifel says, are like Edin—passionate about the medical profession and seeking to become future physicians themselves.
“I feel as though I have been able to have a richer experience with my community in this way,” says past CNA student Alexa Kong ’23. “It really feels as if I am doing something, rather than simply talking about it.”
