From the Dean
I'll take good news any day.
It’s particularly edifying to see good ideas come to fruition and the people involved in them shine.
That happens a lot around here. Whether it’s seeing our new guaranteed graduate admissions for alumni stir interest or the birth of new programs that meet workforce, health system, and student needs, I am grateful every day to be surrounded by faculty and staff colleagues who are committed, energetic, and visionary. They are the engine that keeps our School humming, its heartbeat steady, and our students supported and inspired.
Keeping a nursing school running at speed requires cerebral thinkers, deft hands, and thoughtful leaders. And that UVA School of Nursing runs as well as it does is due in large part to our faculty members’ willingness to take on the many roles required of them. Yes, they teach, but they do so much more, too.
They advocate for legislation and policy. Demystify technology for students and peers. They compel change in care protocols and well-being through research, develop new geographies for clinical care and science, and help us recruit, develop, and retain talented new faculty, prospective students, and others. Though we feature four stellar professors in our cover story “Faculty Faculties"—professors Kim Acquaviva, Kathryn Laughon, Kathryn Reid, and Shelly Smith—there are many more stories to tell of people doing this important and varied work.
In all the difficult news of our world, the work of our bright people truly reminds me that what we’re doing as we move nursing forward is critically important not just to schools or universities or science or health systems but to humanity.
Thank you for reading VNL.
Be well,
Marianne Baernholdt, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN
Dean and the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing and
Dean of Professional Nursing, UVA Health
she/her
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