Columbus -- Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray has recommended to President William E. Kirwan the appointment of Elizabeth R. Lenz as dean of Ohio State’s College of Nursing. Kirwan will ask the university’s Board of Trustees to approve the appointment at its June 1 meeting.

Lenz currently serves as associate dean for research and doctoral studies and professor of nursing and nursing research at the Columbia University School of Nursing in the city of New York. Lenz’s appointment is to be effective Sept. 1. She will replace Carole A. Anderson, who is stepping down Aug. 1.

“I am delighted that we have been able to recruit someone the caliber of Dr. Lenz, who worked at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore campus for a time while I was president of the University of Maryland, College Park,” Kirwan said. “In Maryland, Dr. Lenz’s efforts were instrumental in moving the nursing school to new heights of excellence, serving as the founding director of its nursing Ph.D. program and associate dean for graduate studies and research in nursing.”

“Dr. Lenz is one of the nation’s foremost experts on doctoral nursing education,” Ray said. “Her extraordinary record of scholarship has firmly convinced both myself and members of the search committee that she is well-poised to take our college to a new level of research excellence in alignment with the university’s mission and academic plan.”

Lenz’s research interests have focused on the health of families. She has extensively studied beginning families, parenting, maternal health and infant development, post-hospitalization resources, and the impact of major illness, surgery, and recovery on the family. She is also known within the profession for her theoretical work in social support, information seeking, and theories in nursing science.

Her current research includes a comparison of doctor and nursing practice processes and outcomes, and symptoms and moods of geriatric cardiac surgery patients during recovery. Lenz has authored more than 80 journal articles and book chapters and a text on measurement in nursing research. She edits an international journal, Scholarly Inquiry in Nursing Practice, and has received research funding from multiple federal and foundation sources, including a nearly $400,000 grant this year from the Teagle Foundation to study foundations for the doctor of nursing practice degree.

Prior to joining the Columbia University faculty as associate dean, professor of nursing and the Anna C. Maxwell Professor of Nursing Research in 1996, Lenz held faculty positions at Boston College, Georgetown University, University of Maryland and was professor of nursing and director of the Center for Nursing Research at Pennsylvania State University’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. She earned her bachelor of science in nursing from DePauw University in Indiana, her master of science in public health nursing from Boston College and her doctorate in sociology from the University of Delaware.

“I am delighted to be coming to Ohio State, and excited about assuming the deanship of the College of Nursing in September,” Lenz said. “I am impressed by the College of Nursing’s outstanding reputation, productive faculty, fine students, excellent facilities and strong academic programs.”

Ohio State’s fully accredited College of Nursing ranks in the top 10 percent of graduate nursing programs in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report, and ranks among the top research-intensive colleges, according to the National Institute of Nursing Research.

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(LO)