A Message from the Dean

Nursing is a calling—an art as well as a science. Yale School of Nursing (YSN) graduates aspire and act to live out our school’s mission to change health for the better, for all people. You are joining an intellectual community that integrates science with practice, in a framework of social justice, to address disparities in health that persist in the United States and around the globe. The need for, and the contribution of, advanced practice nurses and midwives have never been greater.

Our role is increasingly recognized as health systems nationwide engage in change, shifting from acute care and volume, to population health and value, acknowledging the need for prevention as well as specialty services. As nurse scientists and expert clinicians, we utilize new and evidence-based methods, including precision health approaches, to inform the care of children and adults in communities everywhere. Globally, countries are returning to Alma-Ata principles of universal health coverage, and nurses and midwives remain the backbone of health provision in every nation. From our School’s founding in 1923 with Rockefeller Foundation funds following the groundbreaking Goldmark report, to the 2016 American Association of Colleges of Nursing “New Era” report on the key role of nursing schools in academic health centers, innovation in clinical practice, teaching, policy, and science has been part of our DNA at YSN. Our excellence is recognized by national and international rankings that place YSN in the top tier of nursing schools. This is a tribute to our faculty, staff, and student community.

Our Graduate Entry Prespecialty in Nursing (GEPN) program, combining preparation in basic nursing with advanced preparation in a clinical specialty, draws some of the brightest and most creative students of any graduate nursing program. Many of our Master of Science in Nursing (M.S.N.) specialty tracks are among the most highly rated in the United States, preparing registered nurses for a variety of leadership roles. Our highly regarded Ph.D. program prepares expert nurse scholars in understanding health care issues and delivery, while advancing the development of nursing knowledge. Our Doctor of Nursing Practice (D.N.P.) program, focusing on health care systems leadership and health policy, is redefining education at Yale with its pioneering hybrid degree format. It was ranked in the top tier nationally after graduating just one cohort, and it continues to draw a diverse and accomplished group of nurse leaders.

Our curricular innovation integrates the use of our recently expanded clinical simulation facility with other twenty-first-century pedagogical technologies. Our world-class faculty engage in high-impact research and practice, in areas that include self-management of chronic conditions, sleep science, symptom science, palliative care, genomics, maternal-child health, mental health, and global health, among other key areas. Our dedicated staff are highly committed to the School and to our mission. We are committed to building diversity, equity, and inclusion within our community, reflecting the populations that we go on to serve. Finally, but not least, YSN is part of the exceptional Yale University ecosystem, in which the tools of intellectual discourse—available to every student—can become instruments of powerful change in the world. We are one YSN, and one Yale, committed, in the words of the University’s mission statement, “to improving the world today and for future generations.”

Thank you for your engagement in YSN. Our faculty, staff, alumnae/i, and I welcome you to Yale and to West Campus.

Ann Kurth, Ph.D., M.P.H., C.N.M., FAAN

Dean, Yale School of Nursing

Linda Koch Lorimer Professor of Nursing