When Jane M. Kirschling, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Bill and Joanne Conway Dean of the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON), first arrived at the institution, she knew she wanted her legacy to be that she left the school “a better place to work and learn, grounded in civility, respect, and inclusion.”
More than a decade later, Kirschling, who will retire this year, said the work the institution has accomplished since 2013 “goes beyond what I could have imagined.”
To a standing ovation and with tears in her eyes, Kirschling thanked the school community.
“There is much more that I could say about our work together. But also, most of all, I’m proud of our decade-long place on the long arc of the 134-year history of the School of Nursing,” she said. “It is truly a decade to celebrate together, remembering our history, stretching back to 1889, and understanding that each decade is a building block for the next. Our shared work comes back to my opening theme that over its long history, the School of Nursing has continually gone the distance in the past, in the present, and in the future.”
At UMSON’s annual State of the School address on May 1, the dean reflected on her tenure, which spanned a national racial reckoning, a pandemic, and a countrywide nursing workforce shortage.
Since Kirschling assumed the role of dean in 2013, the school has made significant strides in changing the face of nursing. In 2013, 37 percent of students identified as racially or ethnically diverse. By fall 2022, that representation had increased to 53 percent.
“An important component of educating a diverse student population is having a diverse faculty that enables all students to see themselves as future nurses and future nurse leaders,” she said.
Over the past five years, faculty who identified as racially and ethnically diverse increased from 28 percent to 42 percent. During the same five-year period, staff diversity increased from 34 percent to 47 percent.
And in 2016, the school hired its inaugural associate dean for diversity and inclusion, the first such dean on the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) campus.
“We grew individually and collectively in our understanding of topics such as implicit bias, difficult conversations, restorative justice, and the history of racism in our city and within the health care system. Through this, we came to better understand the impact of our actions and attitudes toward others and to better appreciate the historical underpinning of issues that many in our community face on a daily basis,” Kirschling added.
Community and public health also has remained a primary focus for the school through multiple partnerships throughout Baltimore City.
Nursing students have worked with Paul’s Place in West Baltimore for over three decades. Each week, they participate in a nurse-led clinic for the community where nursing students along with students from across UMB participate in faculty-supervised street outreach to individuals experiencing homelessness.
And more recently, the school launched a partnership with the Enoch Pratt Free Library System that embeds student nurses in branches throughout Baltimore to provide basic health screenings and health education at no cost to patrons.
Kirschling has been a “terrific partner” during the last decade, UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, said at the close of the event.
“Many times during COVID, I believe she gave us an ounce of common sense when we needed it badly,” he said, referencing Kirschling’s leadership in standing up and running the UMB COVID-19 vaccine clinic and UMSON’s “early-exit” initiative.
The latter initiative, coming in response to then-Gov. Larry Hogan’s request, allowed nursing students who had met the requirements for graduation to work as nursing graduates prior to their formal graduation. Over the course of four semesters, 614 nursing students began service under this initiative.
And while UMSON has always been an excellent school, it has advanced even further with Kirschling’s leadership, Jarrell said.
“Jane, thank you for your energy,” he added. “Thank you for being there for us.”