Before preparing to enter nursing school, Damenika Jacobs was working with school-age children at the Clermont County Board of Developmental Disabilities. Nursing had long been her ambition, according to the agency’s August board meeting minutes.
As Chamberlain University prepared to welcome its first Cincinnati class, Jacobs received news that changed how she would pay for that education: a scholarship covering the full cost of her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.
Chamberlain awarded Jacobs its inaugural Future Healthcare Hero BSN Scholarship in connection with the August opening of its Sycamore Township campus. Village Press Cincinnati that the award covers her path through the new program.
The moment was captured in a promotional video produced through a partnership involving Chamberlain, its parent company Covista and content creator Zachery Dereniowski, known as “MD Motivator.” Jacobs received scrubs, learned about the scholarship and called her mother to share the news, according to the video posted by Covista.
Making room for nursing school
Chamberlain’s first Cincinnati cohort began classes Aug. 31 at 5905 E. Galbraith Road. The campus offers a three-year BSN program with evening and weekend options and no prerequisite coursework required before enrollment, according to the university’s announcement.
Those options are intended to make school accessible to people whose lives include work and other responsibilities. For Jacobs, the scholarship covers the degree’s cost.
Support once students arrive is another part of the experience. During the campus’s first month, one student told staff that she felt “genuinely cared for,” executive campus director Priya Shastri said, as Princeton Pike Corridor reported.
A personal decision amid regional demand
The first class is entering training against a backdrop of substantial healthcare hiring needs.
Greater Cincinnati employers posted nearly 50,000 healthcare openings last year, according to the 2026 Covista Care Capacity Monitor, cited in Chamberlain’s announcement. The figure covers healthcare occupations broadly, rather than nursing alone, and comes from the university’s parent company.
For Jacobs, the next step is more immediate than those workforce projections: pursuing the nursing education her employer described as a longtime goal. Her scholarship gives that ambition a funded path at a new local campus.
