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Teaching Aspect of Nursing
Has
Always Attracted New Dean
Dr.
Nena Sanders, Samford's new nursing dean, has 27 years of
experience as a staff nurse, professor and administrator.
It's almost equally divided between practical and academic
experience.
She taught for 11 years before leaving academe to head a health-care
consulting company. It was that experience that may have nudged;her
back in the direction of the classroom two years ago.
"When
I was consulting, I found myself teaching constantly, retooling
people for different roles," she said, an experience
she continued to find rewarding. "I felt that if I could
touch 30 lives, they in turn would touch 10 lives, and so
on. It becomes a pyramid effect."
As
a result, when she had a chance to return to teaching in 1999,
she did so, joining the faculty of Ida V. Moffett School of
Nursing as professor and coordinator of the graduate Nurse
Executive and Management tracks.
Sanders succeeds Dr. Marian Baur as dean Aug. 1. She brings
not only an appreciation for Moffett's strong tradition and
heritage but also a clear idea of where the school should
go in the future.
"Preparing
students for the constantly changing needs of health care
is the highest priority," she said, but making Moffett
the preeminent faith-based nursing school in the country is
also high on her list of goals.
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Nena
Sanders moves into deanship of Ida V. Moffett School
of Nursing
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Samford's
mission and nursing school programs in parish nursing
and congregational health fit well with such an aspiration,
as do such Moffett programs as a health-care project
for migrant workers on Chandler Mountain in St. Clair
County.
The new dean recognizes that preparing nurses for a
new, constantly changing health-care paradigm will require
"creatively generating new resources such as grants,
traineeships and endowments," she said.
As
a member of a variety of review boards for grants in
the nursing profession, she has wide experience in grant
writing and grant administration.
Sanders served on the nursing faculty at the University
of Alabama at Birmingham from 1983 until 1994. From
1994 until 2000, she was president and chief executive
officer of Strategic Dynamics, Inc., the consulting
firm.
Trained as a cardiovascular-Zlinical nurse specialist,
she was a critical-care clinical specialist at South
Highlands Hospital in Birmingham during 1979–80 and
on the nursing staff at Brookwood Medical Center during
1975-78.
She holds bachelor's, master's and doctoral nursing
degrees from UAB.
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