School of Nursing

June 10, 2021

End of 2020-2021 Academic Year

Thank you.

Once again, we come to the end of an academic year, but this was a year quite unlike any we’ve experienced before. I thank students, faculty, and staff for their flexibility, collaboration, and commitment because that is what made this year successful.

We discovered a way—many ways—to do all that needed to be done. We met many challenges. We went around, over, under, or through many roadblocks. Through it all, you worked as a community to take care of business and take care of one another.

Thank you.

Because each day brought new challenges, it’s easy to lose sight of the many positive things that happened. Among them:

  • US News & World Report ranked us as a top nursing school with DNP and master’s programs at a public university.
  • Founding the nation’s first Center for Antiracism in Nursing.
  • Cited for our innovative efforts numerous times in the landmark National Academy of Medicine’s The Future of Nursing 2020–2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity. This highly influential report centers nursing as the leader of efforts to achieve healthcare equity in the U.S. for the next decade.
  • Continued support for our community through service and outreach, including refugee and immigrant communities, aging and the elderly, tribal nations, and the homeless.
  • Celebrating the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, through Nursing Now and the Nightingale Challenge, reaching hundreds of nurse leaders around the world.
  • Bestowing the first Queen Silvia Nursing Award for dementia care in the United States.
  • Hosting our first all-school Antiracism Learning Day to reflect on and discuss racism in society and healthcare settings.
  • Providing extensive training and support for community vaccination efforts, especially for some of our most vulnerable populations, and helping our state achieve a 50% vaccination rate.
  • Remained a cohesive, collaborative, and supportive community under difficult circumstances.

These are your accomplishments. Thank you.

For our graduating nurses, I wish you every success in your professional lives. For our current students, faculty, and staff, I’m sure you share in my excitement to return to more in-person instruction, more direct contact, more standard clinical placements, and more sense of community and the Husky Experience in the fall.

Take pride in all each of you accomplished this past academic year.

Thank you.