A Message from our Dean

The UBSON had a productive, exciting year in 2013-2014. The faculty and staff began to implement the 5-year strategic plan. This issue will highlight our accomplishments and evidence of our achievements to date. We have increased our DNP and RN/BS enrollments, with 182 students graduating from our BS, MS, DNP, and PhD programs in 2014. We welcomed 3 new faculty members with research agendas that include healthy weight promotion in children and families, problems with health care access for marginalized populations, and perinatal/ neonatal care transitions and technology in nursing education. We are celebrating
our Distinguished Professor, the promotion to full professor for one of our faculty members and promotion to associate professor with tenure for 4 others. Two researchers have received NIH and AHRQ funding for their studies on CBT as an intervention in insomnia and lung cancer, and coordinating transitions with health information technology to improve chronic disease outcomes. These grants build our research enterprise to move towards achieving our goal of attaining global recognition in research and scholarship. One strategy to accomplish our goal of delivering nationally recognized nursing education programs is to increase
global health opportunities for our students. This winter session two groups of students participated in service learning activities in
Peru and Belize. Their stories and pictures are priceless, hope you enjoy them. We received a generous endowment to help more
students to take advantage of these opportunities. We have fostered partnerships within the SON, throughout UB, and with our
community partners. The Joining Forces-UB initiative with the School of Social Work is a great example of partnership between
programs. We have wonderful faculty, students, staff and alums, and in this issue we celebrate the achievements of Dr. Connie
Vari and honor and remember our dear alum and benefactor, Patricia Garman. I hope you find the initiatives we have developed as
exciting as we do.

Sincerely,
Marsha L. Lewis, PhD, RN, FAAN
Dean and Professor