The search committee tasked with recommending the next dean for the FAMU School of Nursing interviewed the second of four finalists on Thursday.
While Mary Ella Graham is the current interim dean. The search committee is hoping to find a candidate to recommend to the provost among the final four candidates.
Thursday’s presentation process was very similar to that of the first candidate on Tuesday. Meeting facilitator Lisa Gardner, anassistant professor in the School of Nursing, encouraged students to enter into the student portion after the presentation was finished.
Gardner then gave a brief introduction for Linda Washington-Brown. She provided Brown’s educational background as well as her experience in nursing and administration.
She mentioned Brown’s most recent work with health care workers due to COVID-19. Brown has led multiple educational seminars on the coronavirus to over 800 participants, nationally and across South Florida.
“She has an extensive background in academic and hospital administration and education,” Gardner said.
Brown is currently an adjunct graduate nurse practitioner at Florida National University in Miami-Dade County. She has more than 47 years’ experience in nursing, 31 years as an advance practice registered nurse, and 35 years in academics in both administration and teaching at various levels.
Linda Washington-Brown is the second candidate to be interviewed by the committee and students via Zoom.
Brown’s presentation was all about celebrating the year 2020, what she called “the year of the nurse,” giving a short history lesson about the 200 year anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. She said she wants to introduce high impact teaching practices to FAMU’s School of Nursing.
Her plan is to provide accountability and quality instruction for students by instilling good teaching among professors. Her system deems quality teaching as summarizing knowledge for students and actively involving students. Good instructors, she said, should be a facilitator and not a director.
“They have a job to do, they need to facilitate your learning. That means assist you, guild you, direct you and provide an infrastructure,” Brown said.
After the presentation Jasmyn Cameron voiced concerns about what Brown would do if there is a conflict between a student and faculty.
“How would you handle a conflict between students and the faculty in the program?” asked Cameron.
Brown responded by saying that there needs to be communication to discuss unresolved issues. She advised that before presenting the issue to faculty the student should be well versed in the program’s policies and procedure.
“As long as you have aligned yourself up with the policies of that course and of the program, and you are finding that there are discrepancies in the delivery, then you have justification,” Brown said.
The School of Nursing dean search committee will interview two more candidates before making any final decisions. The next candidate to present will be Versie Johnson-Mallard.