The 2023-2024 academic year included the 115th anniversary of the University of Minnesota School of Nursing’s founding, the first school for nursing established within a university. Thank you, Board of Regents for the foresight and affirmation of nursing as a knowledge-based profession. Our school was based on the principles that educating nurses would help society recognize the worth of human life, conserve human health and provide for social justice. Now, 115 years later, I marvel at the vision to recognize the role nurses could have in promoting health and social justice. The work of our remarkable faculty, students and staff this past year is replete with validation of Richard Olding Beard’s vision of nursing’s impact.
Broadening the circle beyond ourselves welcomes partnerships and engagement to implement solutions to some of the biggest health challenges our communities and the planet face. Partnerships continued to be a point of emphasis and pride this past year. Two new academic-practice partnerships, or collaboratories, were formalized bringing our total to 10. These collaboratories serve as incubators for creativity and innovation and are exemplars in nursing education, research and care to be shared across our state.
Through collaboration with all of our state’s schools of nursing — both public and private — and its health systems, we are addressing the dire nursing shortage we face. The Center for Nursing Equity and Excellence, housed at the School of Nursing in partnership with Minnesota State, became Minnesota’s official nursing workforce center, launched a nursing apprenticeship pilot program, and laid the foundation for bold future action. As the center’s name denotes, equity must be at the forefront of all that we do to advance nursing. From welcoming our most diverse incoming Bachelor of Science in Nursing class ever to reducing health inequalities through our curriculum and our research, you will see in pages to follow how the University of Minnesota School of Nursing is living out its mission of advancing equitable health care to improve the health and wellbeing of all.
We are deeply grateful to our community of students, staff, and faculty, along with our community partners, who envision with us. Thank you for your support this past year and into the future.
Professor and Dean