Nursing Chair Receives Executive Leadership Fellowship
OGDEN, Utah – Dr. Catherine Earl, chair of the Department of Nursing in the Dr. Ezekiel R. Dumke College of Health Professions at Weber State University, has been selected for a prestigious national fellowship.
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) has named Earl to its 2008 Academic Executive Leadership Fellowship Program. The AACN selects 55 to 60 fellows nationwide each year.The 2008 fellows will attend a five-day workshop in August in Washington, D.C., where they will participate in intensive classes and exercises. This professional gathering will provide fellows with the opportunity to engage in strategic networking and consultation to achieve long-term goals for their departments and schools.
Throughout the fellowship year, participants will apply new concepts and engage in mentorship opportunities with other nursing academic executives throughout the United States, working to accomplish specific, individualized goals for their nursing programs.
This is the latest in a series of honors Earl has received in 2008. Earlier this year, Earl was elected president of Sigma Theta Tau International Scholarship Society of Nursing, Nu Nu Chapter, and elected as president of the Utah Organization of Nurse Leaders, Academic Leadership Team. Earl joined the WSU faculty in the Dumke College of Health Professions in 2005.
WSU’s Department of Nursing has been educating and preparing nurses for 55 years. In 1953, then Weber College was selected as one of seven institutions nationwide to pioneer Mildred Montag’s associate’s degree in nursing model, which was designed to address the nursing shortage in the years following World War II. From that initial class of 36 students in 1953, the program has gone on to educate thousands of men and women as nurses. Today, the program offers students the option to earn a certificate as a practical nurse or a degree as an associate’s degree registered nurse (RN) or a bachelor’s degree registered nurse (BSN). In 2008, the department admitted its first cohort of students for a master’s of nursing degree. The WSU nursing program has provided nursing education not only in Ogden, but, through its outreach efforts, virtually every community throughout Utah.
In 2001, the Helene Fuld Health Trust awarded an academic leadership grant to the AACN in order to develop an executive leadership institute. After four grant-funded classes of fellows, the program was redesigned and became self-sustaining in 2006, but retained the rigorous and competitive selection process.
Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
- John Kowalewski, director of Media Relations
801-626-7212 • jkowalewski@weber.edu - Contact:
- Catherine Earl, professor, chair, Department of Nursing
801-626-6833 · catherineearl@weber.edu