Katharyn May named nursing dean
Katharyn May, a leader of Canada’s academic nursing profession, has been named dean of the School of Nursing.
May, currently a professor and director of the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, will begin the UW–Madison job in January. May also is the current president of the Canadian Association of University Schools of Nursing, a group that steers the country’s 58 colleges and schools of nursing.
“Katharyn May will bring a wide range of expertise to the job and a deep understanding of the emerging issues of her profession,” says Chancellor David Ward. “She will help our nursing school continue to progress and seize new opportunities.”
May succeeds Vivian Littlefield, who stepped down as dean at the beginning of this year after 16 years of leadership. Associate Dean Patricia A. Lasky is serving as the school’s interim dean during the transition.
As director of nursing since 1994 at UBC, May helped establish a strategic plan for the school, developed a new nursing bachelor’s degree program for people in second careers, and created a new Office of Nursing Research. Earlier, she held faculty and administrative posts at the University of California-San Francisco and Vanderbilt University.
May says she will begin the job by listening to colleagues, students and practitioners, and serving as a “lens to focus input on improving the school.”
“The school already has a strategic plan in place, but I think it can be refined to reflect the school’s unique position,” she says. “We need to look for more strategic opportunities and take that next step to becoming one of the leading nursing schools in the nation.”
May says the most pressing concern driving her profession is a worldwide shortage of nurses, a situation expected to worsen in coming years. At the same time, the profession is changing and becoming more complex, putting more responsibility on schools of nursing.
Another goal is to enhance the image of nursing as a rewarding and fulfilling profession, she says, to counter some recent portrayals of low compensation and burnout in the field.
The UW–Madison nursing school, which celebrated its 75th anniversary last year, enrolls roughly 400 undergraduate and 180 graduate students. The new dean will provide leadership to 20 faculty, 36 instructional staff and 46 support staff.
The school has nationally recognized programs in pain management, patient health-seeking behaviors and the application of information technology in health care. It is also advancing plans for a new Nursing Science Center building.
May earned her bachelors degree in nursing and psychology in 1973 from Duke University, and her masters and Ph.D. in nursing science from the University of California-San Francisco. Her research expertise is in the social psychological experience of pregnancy with emphasis on new fatherhood and the impacts of high-risk pregnancy on families.
Her annual salary will be $160,000.