SON: Connections - Spring 2005

Headlines | Briefly | From the Deans Desk
From the Deans Desk

Building Leadership Now for Future Generations

Nancy Fugate Woods
Ph.D, R.N., F.A.A.N.
Dean and Professor

Leadership is not something best left to those "more qualified" or to some "authority." Leadership belongs to each of us.

As the nursing profession confronts challenges such as the shortage of nurses, caring for the aging and increasingly diverse United States population, and the expansion of technology and complexity in our health care system, the need for leadership looms larger on the road ahead.

To address this need, the University of Washington School of Nursing is preparing highly skilled nurses, nursing faculty and researchers to meet today's-and tomorrow's-challenges.

We teach our students how to become critical thinkers and how to adapt to ever-changing environments. We provide them with a strong foundation for evidence-based practice, so they can use new research and translate it into bedside care. As the only school with a PhD nursing program in the five-state region, we are preparing future faculty who will envision new and more effective ways of improving health care.

I see examples of leadership every day. I see it in the students, faculty and staff who serve people in our communities, from neighborhood clinics here in Seattle to outreach in rural Washington and tsunami-ravaged South Asia. I see it in the interdisciplinary research and organizational collaborations faculty undertake. I see it in the faculty of this school, who voted to offer a doctor of nursing degree because that's what the profession, and most important, the patients need. And I'm especially pleased to see younger faculty stepping up to take on leadership roles.

When I was a young faculty member, a commitment to enhancing curricula led me to accept committee leadership positions. A commitment to nursing research about women's health led me to say "yes" to leadership opportunities that spanned everything from local efforts to national initiatives, such as helping to draft a national agenda for women's health for the National Institutes of Health.

My current leadership at the UW School of Nursing represents an opportunity to give back to the organization that has given me so much: an opportunity to engage in the most satisfying work I could ever imagine. Being a faculty member at the UW School of Nursing has given me the freedom to think differently about problems, and the opportunity to collaborate with first-rate colleagues and work with outstanding students.

Leadership requires investment in people, on many different levels. Leadership opportunities, both big and small, are all around you. I encourage you to get involved-as a mentor to a student or a new nurse, as a supporter of a nursing program that holds meaning for you, or as a professional, whether on committees, saying "yes" to leadership positions or doing what needs to be done for the future of nursing.

Headlines | Briefly | From the Deans Desk