Women’s History Month

Professor Stella Ayika

UDC Alum 

Professor Stella Ayika was voted one of two UDC-CC full-time Faculty Members of the Year for 2017 through its Employee Recognition Program. An eternally upbeat, cheerful, and effective assistant professor, Stella Ayika was also selected to represent UDC-CC on a national stage as a 2017 John & Suanne Roueche Excellence Awards recipient. The awards took place in Maryland during the League for Innovation in the Community College’s Innovations Conference in March of 2018 and specifically recognized her teaching impact upon future nurses at the University.

As a registered nurse, Professor Ayika’s personal philosophy centers upon the saying, “each one teach one” as well as mantras similar in nature to “no student left behind” emanating from her early experiences as a young Nigerian girl dreaming of becoming an RN in the United States of America. Having realized that dream, and now having taught at UDC-CC for over seven years, Stella Ayika has taken pride in watching initially underprepared students blossom into exceptional and safe practitioners under her careful watch. Professor Ayika is a graduate of UDC as well, having earned her Associate in Nursing while placing on the Dean’s list every semester from 1998-2001. Stella also obtained both her Bachelors and Masters in Nursing from the University of Phoenix and is also enrolled in a doctoral program at American Sentinel University focusing on Educational Leadership. She has refined her own teaching methods, evidenced recently by completing certification in the ACE credentialed ACUE course in Effective Teaching Practices earlier this semester (thus becoming a “Dean’s Teaching Fellow”). Stella also keeps herself abreast of current nursing practices by working part-time as a float nurse at Medstar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC).