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DR. SHELLY SMITH: I'm Dr. Shelley Smith. And I'm a Professor here at UVA School of Nursing. And I also currently serve as the Interim Associate Dean for Academic Programs, as well as the Program Director for our Master's Level APRN programs.

So I'm a double who. And I have always been super excited to say that I chose nursing. When I first came to UVA as a traditional undergraduate student, I came in as a non-nursing major. And I had the opportunity to volunteer at the hospital, and watch a really excellent nurse. And I thought, well, that's what I want to do. And so then I was able to transfer into the nursing program.

I think that being a nurse allows you to partner with patients, to achieve their own health outcomes. And I can't think of any better career than that, being able to help bring about positive change in a way that a person wants to experience it. And I think that's how we model our education here. We are rooted in nursing, and nursing science, and all that means.

So while we're faculty members, many of us are nurses. And we're trained in that way. We understand the importance between patient-centered care. And I think that really transfers into student-centered learning.

My why for teaching is pretty easy. I really like making engaging learning assignments for our students so that they don't just live in the classroom, but extend into the real world. And so that may be thinking about things of using real-world data sets, or producing materials that go out to educate the public. So that our students don't just do an assignment for me, but an assignment that helps really our entire community.

And my why for the administrative role that I have here is, why not? It's a really great opportunity to lead our faculty and our staff, to make sure that we align with national standards, and fulfill the UVA mission at the same time. It's a real privilege to be able to make sure that we are training the next workforce of nurses and advanced practice nurses to meet the complex needs that they will face when they graduate. And so that's my why for the leadership role, is being able to help think creatively about our academic programs while still executing UVA's mission.

If I had to think of one reason, one word to choose UVA School of Nursing, s would be excellence. We have excellent faculty, excellent staff, excellent students. And so when you come to a place that embraces a culture of excellence, you, too, will be excellent. There are so many opportunities here, between our on-grounds experience, but also our distance opportunities. We really try to meet students where they are. And I think that that's excellent.

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