School Notes: School of Nursing
March/April 2015

DNP program receives accreditation

YSN’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program received official notice from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education that the program has been accredited for five years, through December 31, 2019. The accreditation means that YSN’s DNP program has been approved for engaging in effective educational practices and is being supported for continual growth and improvement of collegiate professional education and post-baccalaureate nurse residency programs.

Director of the DNP program and associate professor Jessica Coviello ’82MSN is excited about this accreditation. “Our students continue to inform us and we are ever mindful of the need for community and its importance in their success. The DNP is a mission that unites us with a commitment to translate the evidence directly into practice. We make it happen.”

Faculty appointed to endowed chairs

YSN dean Margaret Grey ’76MSN recently announced appointments of three faculty members to endowed chairs, effective December 1, 2014. These appointments include: Professor Marjorie Funk, ’84MSN, ’92Pbh, ’92PhD, as the Helen Porter Jane and Martha Prosser Jayne Professor of Nursing; Professor Nancy Redeker as the Beatrice Renfield Term Professor of Nursing; and Professor Nancy Reynolds as the Independence Foundation Professor of Nursing.

Grant helps replicate YSN curriculum

YSN was recently selected as a recipient of a prestigious New Careers in Nursing (NCIN) grant. The grant builds upon the lessons learned through an innovative and highly successful scholarship program for second-career students. NCIN is a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

The project, “Replicating an Innovative Educational Pedagogy for Physical Examination and Problem-Setting Skills,” is a partnership between YSN and Mount St. Mary College. YSN associate professor Linda Pellico, Yale School of Music professor and director of university bands Thomas Duffy, Yale British Art Center senior curator Linda Friedlaender, and Mount St. Mary College assistant professor Sarah Shealy will lead the project with the goal of replicating the “Looking is Not Seeing and Listening is Not Hearing” curriculum.