Appointment of Professor Sioban Nelson, Vice-Provost, Academic Programs

PDAD&C #66, 2012-13

To:         Faculty, Staff and Students, Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

            PDAD&C

           

From:       Cheryl Misak, Vice-President and Provost

Date:       June 18, 2013

RE:         Appointment of Professor Sioban Nelson, Vice-Provost, Academic Programs

CC:              President David Naylor

            The Bulletin

I am very pleased to announce that the Executive Committee of the Governing Council has approved the appointment of Professor Sioban Nelson as Vice-Provost, Academic Programs for a five-year term effective August 1, 2013.  As a result, Dean Nelson will be stepping down as Dean of the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing effective July 31, 2013. 

As Vice-Provost, Academic Programs, Professor Nelson will provide provostial oversight in the area of academic 'quality assurance' and standards at the graduate and undergraduate level.  In addition, she will have responsibility for facilitating academic change and academic planning, as well as University-wide academic policy matters.

A leading scholar of nursing, Professor Nelson is the author of two books and six edited volumes, including the acclaimed 'Say little do much': Nursing, Nuns and Hospitals in the Nineteenth Century (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001) and the prize-winning Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered (co-editor, with Suzanne Gordon, Cornell University Press, 2006).  A forthcoming co-edited book on Interprofessional education and practice will be out next spring. Professor Nelson is also co-editor of the Culture and Politics of Healthcare Work list for Cornell University Press ILR imprint.  Her research interests include the assessment of competency in and regulation of professional practice; mobility and the global health professional workforce; and the transnational history of nursing. She was member of the 2012 Canadian Nurses Association National Expert Commission for the Future of Healthcare and is currently co-chair of the Scopes of Practice Assessment for the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Professor Nelson came to Canada from Australia in November 2005 to assume the role of Dean of the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing. She began her nursing career in the far northwest of Australia and went on to practise in acute care, home care and community nursing. Prior to joining UofT, she was Head of the School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

As Dean, Professor Nelson has enhanced the stature of the Bloomberg Faculty's academic programs and research.  She has increased the Faculty's profile within the University of Toronto and with external community and professional partners. Professor Nelson has not only been a champion of the Faculty of Nursing, but also of the whole of the University of Toronto's health sciences.  Professor Nelson has done an outstanding job during her two terms as Dean, and I am delighted to welcome her to this new role.