Dean Marianne Baernholdt

You've come to an extraordinary place.

Not only is UVA School of Nursing Virginia’s best, but we’re consistently rated among the nation’s most highly ranked nursing programs, and a destination school for a huge array of extraordinary students: fresh-from-high school graduates, working RNs looking for personal and professional growth, first-generation college attendees, racial and ethnic monitories, and men.  

Our mission is to improve lives through nursing.

As a learning community of students, faculty, and staff, we are rooted in compassion and respect and value trust, equity, excellence, collaboration, and knowledge as our foundation. Spanning topics in aging, health disparities and equity, and healthcare technologies, our nurse scientists are positioned to lead, from discovery to translation. We co-create and enhance partnerships to improve health and healthcare and are actively transforming educational offerings to meet the changing needs of our students, the Commonwealth, and society. In our work, we strive to cultivate trust and equity in all that we do across our learning, research, and clinical environments. 

Whether you’re interested in our degree programs or certificates, curious about our continuing education offerings and events, or are a scholar or educator seeking a new academic home or an organization or community group willing to partner with us, there is truly something here for everyone. 

We hope you’ll want to learn more. Join us for a program info session, a lecture or a workshop, or register for a virtual meeting with one of our program directors, faculty members, Graduate Student Ambassadors, or peruse our open positions. We are transforming health through exceptional care, science, learning, and influence and a School that strives to make its members feel valued, respected, included, and at home. 

Thank you for your interest in our School. 

Be well, 

Marianne Baernholdt signature
Marianne Baernholdt, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN
The Pew Charitable Trusts Dean and Professor, UVA School of Nursing
Dean of Professional Nursing, UVA Health University Medical Center


Mission

Improving lives through nursing 

Vision

Transforming health through exceptional care, science, learning, and influence 

Values

The UVA School of Nursing is a learning community rooted in compassion and respect, and in lockstep with UVA Health and its ASPIRE values, which include Accountability, Stewardship, Professionalism, Integrity, Respect, and Equity. As a community of students, faculty, and staff, we value: 

  • Trust: We are a community of trust and integrity 
  • Equity: We stand firmly for equity, inclusion, and diversity and against racism and social injustices of any kind
  • Excellence: We pursue excellence in nursing practice and in teaching and learning, and believe learning is life-long
  • Collaboration: We value problem-solving across programs and roles and collectively thrive when the environment is healthy, respectful, and caring
  • Knowledge: We are committed to advancing science and developing evidence-based solutions that improve health, health equity, and healthcare 

Our Extraordinary Future: 10-Year Strategic Plan


Our Extraordinary Future: 10-Year Strategic Plan - Our Process

Initiated upon Marianne Baernholdt's arrival as dean in fall 2022, and among her top priorities, the School's strategic planning process was designed to be an inclusive, iterative process that would tap the collective knowledge, experience, and expertise of the School of Nursing community. Guided by UVA's Office of Organizational Excellence, a 10-member Strategy Working Group, Dean's Council members, as well as community members at large, who were invited multiple times throughout the process to contribute to and co-create a shared future direction for the School, our community embarked on a process of discovery and refinement as we collectively identified, explored, and developed emerging areas of impact and distinction.

Foundational to the process launch were a series of community conversations in which more than half of faculty and staff shared their insights and aspirations and identified big areas of opportunity. An All-School Strategic Planning Retreat in January 2023—that engaged more than three quarters of faculty and staff—was followed by work groups in later 2023 and early 2024. In summary, across the process, more than 30 working sessions gathered more than 100 members of the School community, work that led to the plan’s completion, the School's finalized plan, and our collective path forward.

Nearly 18 months after it began, and after a brief pause in spring and summer 2023 as the School prepared for multiple decennial re-accreditation visits, School leaders vetted the final draft of the plan in spring 2024 with the School community and key UVA and UVA Health stakeholders. 

Our Extraordinary Future: 10-Year Strategic Plan


UVA School of Nursing's organizational chart, as of August 2024.

Organizational chart


Strategic Plan Working Group members

Ryne Ackard, Kimberly Acquaviva, Cathy Campbell, Lynn Corbett, Delores Fields, Ivora Hinton, Tracy Kelly, Kathryn Laughon, John Teahan, and Ishan Williams

Dean’s Council members+

Ryne Ackard, Jeanne Alhusen, Theresa Carroll, Bethany Coyne, Gina DeGennaro, Beth Epstein, Melissa Gomes, Sarah Hallowell, Randy Jones, Lance Poston, Kathryn Reid, Barbara Reyna, Abby Self, Shelly Smith, John Teahan, and Erik Williams.

+ Individuals listed served on Dean’s Council at some point during Strategic Plan development.

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