It is a great privilege to be a part of the School of Nursing and WCU faculty community. I have more than 30 years of hospital leadership experience including Chief Nursing Officer at several hospitals in Western North Carolina. I also taught short courses, provided lectures, created educational power points, and other materials while in that role. I am a Fellow/Lifetime Member in the American College of Healthcare Executives and am Board Certified through AACN as a Nurse Executive- Advanced. I served as an Adjunct Faculty member at WCU for three years prior to joining the School of Nursing faculty full time. I am honored to serve as the Director of the Post Licensure BSN programs (RN to BSN and RIBN )and to work with such an amazing faculty. We have begun a collaboration with the other WCU BSN programs to identify and share best practices in curriculum development, I successfully defended my disquisition on March 14, 2022 and will graduate on May 6,2022, Doctor of Educational Leadership. My disquisition focus was "ENHANCING NURSING FACULTY AWARENESS OF IMPLICIT RACIAL BIAS, IN AN ONLINE TEACHING ENVIRONMENT, AS AN ANTIRACISM STRATEGY TOWARD THE ELIMINATION OF HEALTH DISPARITY FOR THE BLACK, HISPANIC, AND AMERICAN INDIAN POPULATIONS". My research intervention evaluated methodologies in an online environment to raise nursing faculty's awareness of our implicit bias. Findings of this research will be used to continue awareness raising activities with the faculty and inform the nursing curriculum and teaching methodology. We can improve health care and health status for minority populations with an informed nursing workforce aware of the presence and impact of their implicit bias on health care delivery.
Health disparity, population health management, ethics, evidence-based practice, development of nurses as leaders - at the bedside and the boardroom, the Nurse as an advocate for improvement, and development of strategies to reduce the effect of implicit bias on health care.
I am interested in the identification and development of best teaching practices in a distance learning environment to include teaching strategies, assessment of learning, effective tools for student engagement, effective evaluation of online technology to promote learning and promotion of professionalism. Other interests include the assessment of appropriate workload metrics to ensure faculty effectiveness and work-life balance, implementation of novel curricular models to support the development of leadership skills in our students, raised student awareness of the nurse's role regarding social justice, equity, valuing diversity, and strategies to promote sharing of effective curriculum design and effective teaching practices within the School of Nursing