Welcome Back Spring 2024: A Message from Dean Villarruel

Penn Nursing Dean Antonia Villarruel

Our Penn Nursing community is strongest when we look out for one another, but it is more than that—we must lead with respect, kindness and empathy.

Our School is well known for its excellence and commitment, and I am proud that our faculty, staff, and students operate with a sense of understanding, compassion, and forgiveness that is vital. Thank you for your efforts to center consideration and generosity of spirit. It means a great deal to me personally, and I am very appreciative.

Writer Anne Lamott is infamous for saying, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” For so many of us—myself included—it can be difficult to truly take a break from work that is important and personally fulfilling, especially with so much happening on campus and around the world. Yet it is a critical part of bringing your best self to your work. Taking care of yourself is key, and I’d like to ask you to also take care of each other as well as we move into Spring semester.

Events

Penn Nursing events reflect the culture of our School, and so I am pleased to see many exciting opportunities for us to get together to develop our skills and to celebrate—including an information session on the Innovation Accelerator program on January 18. The Nursing Story Slam, one of my favorite events of the year, follows in February.

As usual, we are marking Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with a series of events, including this year’s MLK Day speaker Roxana Chicas PhD, RN, an innovative researcher who studies the effects of heat on farmwork health. Social justice IS climate justice—and I know we will all be inspired by her work and passion. The Bates Center will sponsor a film screening and panel with accompanying exhibits on Mercy-Douglass Hospital and the fight for racial equality in Philadelphia’s health care system as part of our series, too. Look for information on that in your inbox soon!

And speaking of the Bates Center, you don’t want to miss the 2024 seminar series at the Bates, which hosts prominent scholars from around the world to present new historical scholarship on issues central to Nursing. The 8th Norma L. Lang Lecture is coming up, as well—that’s happening on April 24. This year the event will honor Pamela Z. Cacchione, PhD, CRNP, BC, FGSA, FAAN, 2024 recipient of Penn Nursing’s prestigious Norma M. Lang Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy.

I encourage you to attend these events and keep your eye on the calendar for more—showing up for the School matters as much as showing up for each other, and it helps keep our community vital, enthusiastic, and engaged. I look forward to seeing you at an event soon!

New To Our Community

I‘m very happy that Wendy A. Henderson, PhD, MSN, CRNP, FAAN is joining us at Penn Nursing as the inaugural Gail and Ralph Reynolds President’s Distinguished Professor. This is a critical new role for our School, and Dr. Henderson brings with her a wealth of nursing scholarship.

I’d also like you to help me welcome additional new members of our Penn Nursing community who have joined us over the last several months:

Family and Community Health

Behavioral and Health Sciences

We also welcome several managers, associate directors, research specialists, and coordinators in Biobehavioral and Health Sciences, Family and Community Health, and Academic Affairs.

I am grateful to everyone at Penn Nursing for welcoming our new staff and faculty, and for making this new semester one where we can all succeed. I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together.

Warmly,

- Toni