This year marks the thirty-fourth anniversary of Philip and Muriel Hahn’s generous contribution that launched the University of San Diego’s Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science. Over the past three decades, our graduate school has taken seriously its mission to educate intelligent, skilled, and ethical nurse clinicians, scientists, faculty, and executives. We have graduated over 1500 nurses, 150 with the Doctorate, who serve as health care leaders across the globe. The extraordinary generosity of alumni, clinical partners, foundations, government agencies, our own faculty and staff, and other donors has permitted us to double our number of student scholarships. We now celebrate the largest student body in our school’s history!

Our ranking continues to be one of the worlds finest, and this is due, in large part, to a stellar faculty, very talented students, a remarkably esthetic setting, and our school’s special spirit. Our faculty now boasts four Fellows in the American Academy of Nursing –a most distinguished honor. Faculty are prepared with doctoral or post-doctoral degrees from the finest schools in the country. They publish widely in respected journals, preside as officers in national and international nursing organizations, and are skilled certified practitioners, specialists, or executives. Joining our faculty this year are Lois Howland, RN, who holds a doctorate in public health from Harvard University, and completed post doctoral training at Virginia Commonwealth University; John Lantz, RN, PhD Adult Education, Texas A & M and Post-Doctorate, Administration on Aging; and Visiting Professor Karen Skerrett, RN, PhD Psychology and Human Development, University of Chicago.

In the past year, we have launched our Office of Nursing Research, directed by Cynthia Connelly, RN, PhD, FAAN, and staffed with research methodologists, statisticians, and grant writers. This office helps faculty prepare research grants that address some of the most critical health care problems of our time, as well as to integrate teaching, research, and clinical practice missions with the most vulnerable of our populations.

Our new Office for International Nursing, headed by Anita Hunter, RN, PhD, FAAN, coordinates local and international health missions in which students and faculty join together in integrated research, learning, service projects that actualize our mission as a private school with a public conscience. In its latest undertaking, the SON is consulting with the Archdiocese of Mbarara, Uganda to establish a children’s hospital to deal with Malaria and other preventable childhood illnesses that kill over 10,000 children each year.

Our Simulated and Standardized Patient Nursing Laboratory, coordinated by Kathy McCarthy, RN, MSN, CNM, contains hospital and emergency room units, an array of simulation computerized mannequins, and our unique Standardized Patient Program. Professors Karen Macauley, RN, MSN, CFNP, Diane Fatica, RN, MSN, CFNP, ANP, and Cheryl K. Ahern-Lehmann, PhD, RN, CANP have worked together to develop the Standardized Patient Program, which uses specially designed case studies and scripts for actors and actresses to portray clinical cases for the education and testing of our students.

Our Doctorate in Nursing Practice (DNP) program is in its final stages of planning by Susan Instone, RN, DNSc, CPNP, our Director of Advanced Practice Nursing Programs, and our faculty. The program is scheduled to begin in fall 2008, initially as a post-Master’s Degree program, and will include a Clinical Residency and Translational Science or Evidence-Based Clinical Research project. A most unique feature of our DNP program will be its option or bridge to the PhD in Nursing.

Thank you to our donors and friends who have enabled us to renovate most of the major spaces within the school, and convert all of our classrooms into “Smart” learning spaces. Special thanks to our clinical partners Palomar/Pomerado, Scripps LaJolla, and Scripps Mercy who have provided support for their top nurse executives and clinicians to enter our programs. We are most grateful to over 200 San Diego Nurse Practitioner and Physician Preceptors who donate their time and talents to prepare our next generation of Advanced Practice Nurses.

If you are a potential applicant to our school, you should know that our students are women and men who represent many faiths, ethnic groups, and geographical regions, but they all share certain things in common –intellectual curiosity, critical thinking skills, and a compassion for their patients. One of the best aspects of our school is the caliber of students whom we admit. They will transform your educational and professional experience. Students’ testimonials include statements such as, “No other school ever has offered me the support and individual mentoring that I have received here;” and, “I absolutely love coming to this school and this campus – the serenity, the calm, the classmates –all great!”

I welcome all of you to consider Nursing –the most trusted of all professions –for your future career. If you choose not to apply to our school, I urge you to continue your Nursing education to its highest levels wherever you go. Should you wish to join our USD family, we have many vehicles of financial aid and forgivable loans to help you. We can offer you personalized mentoring, small classes, an ethics-based curriculum, and real world education where you will work with faculty serving vulnerable populations locally and internationally.

Wishing you the best of health and the best in your professional career,

Dean Sally Brosz Hardin, PhD, RN, FAAN, and the Faculty, Students, and Staff of the Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science