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A Message from the Dean

It is great to be in New Mexico! In fact, it really does feel like I have come home. I got my start in the professional world of nursing in Colorado. I graduated from the University of Colorado with my BSN and MSN, and went on to spend 18 years at Texas Tech, where I completed my PhD and began to get a taste of academic administrative roles in nursing. Illinois State University became my home for the next nine years while I was Dean of their School of Nursing. Before coming to UNM, I had the good fortune to spend 18 months in Washington, DC, as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Fellow in Health Policy, working on Capitol Hill with the Ways and Means Committee.

The UNM College of Nursing is absolutely the perfect place for me now. There is the Nursing Health Policy concentration in the PhD program, the distinctly diverse student body, a state with rural outreach and tremendous need, nationally ranked programs, and invaluable partnership opportunities with our Health Sciences Center colleagues in medicine, cancer, pharmacy, the hospital, and allied health.

For me, change is always immensely powerful and promising. As a nurse, I have constantly embraced the chance for something new. Even when there are challenges…and never have there been so many. Nevertheless, I am a nurse practitioner, and those roots are forever resilient. Whether it is the nursing or nursing faculty shortage, the scarcity of clinical sites, the lack of teaching space, or the overwhelming need for more private money, I find myself stimulated and inspired to do more for all of us because we need the best and the brightest nurses. With our team of faculty, staff, students, alumni, friends, and donors, we will continue to be a college “on the move,” growing our student enrollment, with the largest capacity undergraduate degree programs in the state, nationally ranked graduate programs, and Web-based programs like none other in the state. Remember that we must keep dreaming, planning, and executing important, cutting-edge programs and providing excellent nursing education, research, service, and leadership with vision and passion!