New Jersey Commissioner of Health Judith Persichilli, a Rutgers School of Nursing alumna (’76), says she learned the fundamentals for handling the current crisis from her education at Rutgers. “Before Rutgers, I went to St. Francis School of Nursing in Trenton for my diploma, and I like to say that’s where I learned how to care,” she says. But caring isn’t always enough, particularly during a pandemic, when facts are needed to ground good decision making. “Besides caring, the program at Rutgers taught me how to be curious—in terms of research, the underpinnings of what nurses do, the importance of using evidence in caring for patients, and also to consider what’s happening out in the community in addition to within the hospital.”