SOUTH KINGSTOWN – Barbara Wolfe, dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Rhode Island, was honored by the Yale School of Nursing, her alma mater, in mid-May with the Distinguished Alumna award in recognition of the achievements made throughout her 30-plus-year career in clinical, research and academic nursing.
The New Haven, Conn.-based Ivy League school presents the award to a select group of alumni each year for demonstrating “achievement or distinction in their career, their contributions to their communities or to” the School of Nursing, per the release.
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“It’s an honor to be recognized by an alma mater for your accomplishments, but our work is far from done. We will continue to develop and expand academic programs to reflect the needs of nursing in the 21st century,” said Wolfe in a statement.
In her two years at URI’s School of Nursing, Wolfe has overseen undergraduate students score a first-time pass rate of higher than 90 percent on the National Council Licensure exam, and she is working to expand the graduate course offerings, which includes the launch of the Rhode Island Nursing Education Center in Providence.
“We’ve made a concerted effort to expand high-tech offerings [such as] advanced simulation labs for undergraduate and graduate students, increase access to higher education through programs [such as] Pathways to Nursing and promote the collaboration among health professionals needed in health care today,” said Wolfe in prepared remarks.
Prior to her tenure at URI, Wolfe served as the associate dean for research at Boston College’s Connell School of Nursing, which was preceded by a stint as the director of the Center for Nursing Research at Connell. Her psychiatric/mental health nursing research, and specifically her work on eating disorders, has been published in numerous academic and medical journals.
For the past 14 years, Wolfe has lectured in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, as well as serving as a research associate at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Wolfe, a former president of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, holds Adult Psychiatric and Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist board certification from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Syracuse University, a master’s degree in psychiatric mental health nursing from Yale University and her doctorate in nursing from Boston College.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
