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Baur Steps Down as Nursing
Dean, Will Continue to Teach
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Marian
Baur, dean since 1987, heads to the classroom.
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Dr.
Marian Baur steps down this summer after 14 years as
dean of Samford’s Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing.
One of the highlights of her tenure came soon after
she arrived in 1987-a new building. Another occurred
more recently-Samford’s Problem- Based Learning Initiative.
"The
opportunity to move into the Center for the Healing
Arts in 1988 was definitely a step forward," Baur
said, underscoring how much an academic program's identity
is confirmed by having modern facilities of its own.
"Early
on, as I showed prospective students and faculty around
campus, I became aware that some Samford students didn’t
even know that we had a School of Nursing." Previous
campus quarters for the nursing school were in a building
shared with three other major academic programs.
The PBL initiative beginning in the late'90s "is
about putting together a cadre of faculty and staff
that have the same goals: the success of students, and
a love of teaching and of people," she said.
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But
Baur is proud of other high moments marking nursing school
progress and quickly ticks them off:
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The adoption of a quality assessment model as put forth
by Associate Provost John Harris. "As a faculty, we
were committed to standardizing and controlling our processes,"
she said.
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The opening of the Master of Science in Nursing program
in 1995.
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qlose affiliation with Baptist Health Systems, the stabilization
of enrollment and availability of scholarships.
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President Thomas E. Corts’ leadership in computerization
of the campus and updating of nursing computer labs.
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Receipt of grants from the Samford Quality Council to renovate
classrooms, enabling the nursing school to maintain its
high-tech approach.
Baur has always seen herself as a facilitator and believes
it is in that role that she made her greatest contribution
as dean.
Although retiring as dean, she will remain on the nursing
faculty, teaching an upper-level (ourse, directing clinical
opportunities and tutoring students before licensing exams.
She also looks forward to more time for visits with her daughter
in Florida and son in Minnesota, where she hopes to make a
10-day dogsled trip next winter.
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