Expanding for the future

Merle Mast, unit head 1999-2011

During my 26-year career in Nursing at JMU (1990 – 2016), nursing occupied four different spaces and negotiated huge changes. In 1990 we moved from a single corridor of the Wine-Price building to Harrison Annex, where we taught skills in a small learning laboratory containing a few hand-cranked hospital beds. In 1999 we joined the College of Integrated Science and Technology (CISAT) in the Health and Human Services Building on East Campus and enjoyed larger laboratory spaces that included real equipment and a few patient simulators. In 2011, Nursing moved temporarily to Burruss Hall on the West Campus, before occupying our present new building in 2016. I served as Academic Unit Head (AUH) for 12 years (1999 – 2011). I recall our Dean asking me, as incoming AUH, to share with the Nursing faculty my vision for the future. I proposed initiating graduate programs and an RN to BSN completion program. Little did I know a national nursing shortage of entry level nurses was looming. Little did I know a national movement to launch the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) was about to begin. changes. As the nursing shortage intensified and JMU continued to expand, the university joined a statewide initiative to increase baccalaureate nursing program capacity. In 1999 we graduated about 40 new nurses, but we quickly began working on strategies to double, and then to triple our graduates. This required us to design high-tech learning laboratories, negotiate scarce clinical sites and learn to teach large classes using newly evolving teaching-learning technologies. Many bright, eager students applied, and by 2011 we were graduating 120

new nurses each year! Simultaneously, the JMU administration supported our desire to grow on all fronts. In 2004 we secured federal funding to launch our first graduate programs, and in 2005 we began to offer our RN-BSN completion program. In 2008 we received JMU and State approval for our Doctor of Nursing Practice program, which, despite a national economic downturn, was funded and opened in 2012. During these years we adopted new on-line teaching platforms and expanded our relationships with partners in clinical practice. Student numbers in all our programs grew steadily and our spacious digs on the East Campus grew cramped.

What a ride! These years were all about vision, strategic planning, and CHANGE as we designed new curricula, assigned new program directors, and advocated for more physical space, faculty positions, and support staff. I honed my grant-writing skills and, with other faculty, secured more than two million dollars of state and federal funding for our new programs. By 2011 our full-time faculty numbers grew from nine to 27.

My career coincided with huge needs in health care and the dynamic growth of JMU as an institution. I have been so fortunate to have so many challenging and exciting opportunities to develop, grow, and administrate new educational programs, and to engage in creative teaching and scholarship. In addition to our programs, I am proud of our engagement with community partnership programs in health care. I helped to begin, oversee and obtain ongoing grant funding for Caregivers Community Network, a service learning and respite care program founded in 2001. This program won several JMU, State and national awards for best practices in education and caregiving for frail older adults. Between 2011 and my retirement in 2016, I returned to fulltime teaching and helped to begin the DNP program, creating new courses and working with younger faculty and graduate students to engage in research and writing for publication.

I have a huge sense of satisfaction and excitement about all that our faculty and students in Nursing at JMU have done – and continue to accomplish in innovative new ways. We have continued to grow and are now nationally recognized for our excellence in nursing education. Our alumni are nursing leaders. I am grateful to have been part of this exciting history!

Mast in her CISAT office.