After an Outstanding Year, The Best is Yet to Come

As we begin 2016, I want to thank everyone for an outstanding 2015 at Columbia University School of Nursing. Together we have accomplished much over the past 12 months, confirming that our spirit of dedication and advocacy on behalf of others, intellectual vitality, and pride in our rich heritage that will serve us well in the New Year and beyond.

In any recap, it’s most fitting to begin with our students.

Drawing from a record number of applicants to our Entry To Practice program, we accepted the largest, academically strongest class in our history, featuring highest-ever GRE scores and grade point averages. What’s more, 42 percent of the class comes from diverse communities. This testifies to our commitment to introduce more students from under-represented groups to the field of nursing.  

We had an equally strong application season for the opening year of our new Masters Direct Entry Program (MDE). The group comprised a wide range of ages, racial and ethnic backgrounds, hometowns, and professional and educational experience. Again, there is an impressive demonstration of academic excellence.

We strengthened ongoing programs to support our doctoral students and faculty members in pursuing research grants. This includes Reach for Research Excellence, which provides assistance and coaching in the crucial areas of grant writing, manuscript preparation, and professional presentation.

This past year our faculty members were, as always, highly productive on the research front. The more than 70 wide-ranging, active sponsored projects included studies to examine potential benefits of using cell phones to monitor cardiac patients for recurring atrial fibrillation; a web application offering self-care strategies for cardiovascular disease and other serious conditions to people living with HIV/AIDS; and web-based interventions to support caregivers of Hispanic dementia patients.

Our school was re-designated a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Advanced Practice Nursing and our Office of Global Initiatives continued to build powerful relationships with academic nursing institutions in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Funding from the Columbia University’s Global Initiative Fund is allowing us to expand the capacity of nurses and midwives to carry out life-saving clinical research in southern and eastern Africa. And for the first time, a group of our students took part in a clinical rotation at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain.  

Working together with Columbia Global Center | Africa, we convened a landmark conference of nursing leaders from 11 sub-Saharan African nations at the CGC Kenyan headquarters in Nairobi. The group’s mission, which is continuing beyond the conference, is to identify relevant findings in clinical nursing and midwifery research for application in the region and develop plans for addressing gaps. The conference earned international media coverage, including The New York Times.

Work toward the completion of our new home in the spring of 2017 is on schedule and budget. We celebrated the progress with a topping-off ceremony this past December where more than 75 students, alumni, faculty, and other members of the Columbia University community gathered to sign the last beam and watch as it was lifted into place to complete the steel structure. The ongoing work on the new building was greatly aided by two major gifts. The first, a $1 million pledge from Mary Dickey Lindsay ’45 and her family will help support the building’s second floor skills lab named for both Mary Lindsay and her daughter, the late Louise Lindsay Read ’74. We also received a $6.5 million pledge from the Helene Fuld Health Trust that will support the Helene Fuld Simulation Center, underwrite an Institute for Excellence in Simulation, and increase financial aid for our students through the Helene Fuld Scholarship Fund. We are most grateful for the generosity of these and many other alumni and friends of the school as we continue to raise funds for our new building, student scholarships, and academic programs.

This past year, our school rose from 21st to 11th in the US News and World Report rankings for the best nursing schools in the nation. While we view these surveys with care, all the same we are proud to be recognized for our academic and research excellence by our peers.

With a full array of exciting initiatives, 2016 is primed to match and even surpass 2015.  

Two major capital projects will continue to loom large this year. The opening of Columbia Nursing’s Washington Heights Faculty Practice late this spring will offer residents and individuals working in the community high-quality primary care and integrated mental health care provided by nurse practitioners. The new facility will also supply a rigorous clinical learning experience to our students, representing a natural transition from the classroom to the exam room. 

Our new building will continue to occupy the forefront of what we will be thinking about and doing this year. The beautiful, functional design will continue taking shape before our eyes. It will furnish the best in teaching and research environments including flexible space to promote collaboration anda state-of-the art simulation center, as well as a rooftop garden terrace.. It will also serve as home to the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Healthcare by virtue of a generous $11.1 million, 10-year grant from Barbara and Donald Jonas. The center’s two main components are the Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar Program, which addresses the shortage of nursing faculty by preparing nurses with doctoral degrees to step into this critical role, and the Jonas Veterans Healthcare Program, which supports doctoral-level nursing candidates committed to advancing veterans’ health care.

In 2016 our outstanding faculty researchers will once again be pursuing funding for an extensive range of research projects. These include studies for preventing infection in home health care settings, reducing staph occurrence among the prison population, and increasing medically appropriate use of asthma inhalers among minority populations.

Beginning this June, our new curriculum takes effect. Our MDE program is built on the strong foundation of our entry-to-practice curriculum and will be completed in four consecutive semesters, focusing on care coordination, evidence-based practice, and culturally sensitive care. MDE will prepare superbly educated nurses to meet the challenges of caring for more complicated, longer-living patients. We have developed several new courses with content vital for a masters-level professional nurse in our fast-changing health care environment including Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Leadership in Nursing, and Care Coordination. And we have launched our first-ever Continuing Nursing Education program comprising more than 20 courses. Offerings include new developments in such fields as diabetes and pediatrics, pharmacology, and scholarly writing.

As these initiatives and many others show, the Columbia University School of Nursing culture of excellence remains deep and well-defined. Working together, the best is yet to come.