New partnership between Penn Nursing and Agnes Irwin

Faculty at Agnes Irwin, a private school for girls, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing will co-teach a class on global health issues at the school in the fall.

Agnes Irwin, based in Rosemont, said the partnership is the first of its kind in the Philadelphia area between an independent school and Penn Nursing and designed to bring college-level coursework into the school.

The elective course will be offered to 11th and 12th graders and focus on global health issues as they relate to girls and young women. The partnership was developed through Agnes Irwin's Center for the Advancement of Girls, which touts leadership, wellness, global citizenship and teaching and learning in the 21st century.

"This collaboration with Penn Nursing allows us not only to bring Ivy League teaching to our classrooms, it also opens up a world of research and global awareness for our students that is unparalleled in a high school classroom," Mariandl Hufford, the center's director, said in a prepared statement. "Our girls will learn first-hand how health care (or lack thereof) for girls and women impacts local and global economies and will motivate them to seek solutions that will shape a better world."

The partnership was spurred through conversations with Loretta Jemmott, an Agnes Irwin parent and center advisory board member who also is a professor at Penn's nursing school and HIV/AIDS researcher.