Kent State’s College of Nursing will host Driving the Future II: Clinical Conversations About Tomorrow’s Nurse: Transforming Clinical Education Through Collaboration/Crafting New Competencies for Ohio Nurses from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 27, in the Kent Student Center Kiva.

The program, sponsored by the College of Nursing, the Cleveland Clinic Nursing Initiative and the Deans’ Roundtable Collaboration, will include special guest speaker Christine Tanner, RN, Ph.D., who will lead the group in a working discussion of vital competencies for tomorrow’s effective nurse.

Tanner is recognized nationally for her expertise in nursing education, serves as senior editor for the Journal of Nursing Education, and was the 2005 recipient of the National League for Nursing Award for Excellence in Nursing Education Research.

She has been the principal or co-principal investigator on numerous research grants and project director on several training grants from both the federal government and local and national foundations. She was the primary investigator commissioned by the Northwest Health Foundation’s study of the nursing workforce, authoring the report “Oregon’s Nursing Shortage: A Public Health Crisis in the Making.” 

“Our task was to increase supply and, at the same time, transform how nurses are educated using the resources we have,” Tanner says in an Oregon Health Sciences University School of Nursing publication.

In four years, OHSU and other Oregon nursing programs have made remarkable progress in increasing supply and revamping nursing education. The state of Oregon’s success in strengthening nursing provides an opportunity to explore how nursing services could effectively be provided in Ohio.

“We look forward to this opportunity to bring representatives from many clinical agencies and nursing programs together to examine ways to strengthen nursing for Ohio,” says Laura Dzurec, dean of the Kent State University College of Nursing.  

Tanner, a Youmans Spalding Distinguished Professor at the Oregon Health Sciences University School of Nursing in Portland, has more than 30 years experience in academic nursing, serving both as faculty and in various administrative positions, including director of research development and associate dean for the OHSU statewide undergraduate program.

###

Media contact:

Rachel Wenger-Pelosi, rwenger@kent.edu, 330-672-8046