Doctor of Nursing Practice students in the Maloney Hall simulation lab. Photograph: Caitlin CunninghamĚý

Every student who passes through the Connell School of Nursing encounters the principles of formative education that serve as the core of Boston College’s tradition: care for the whole person, rigorous inquiry, critical thinking, and service to others. Although they are rooted in Jesuit pedagogy, these principles have broad applications, and they shape the ways our alumni approach nursing care. For those who also become leaders, they offer a roadmap.

“The best leaders tend to be lifelong learners who use their gifts and their access to education in service to others,” says Connell School Dean Katherine E. Gregory, who is herself a 2005 graduate of CSON’s doctoral program. “Formative education excels at fostering these qualities: reflection, deep curiosity, and servant leadership.”
Three of her fellow Connell School Ph.D. alumnae are now deans at very different institutions—two state university nursing schools on opposite coasts, and Texas’s oldest Historically Black College and University (HĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝U). In this Q&A, they shared their insights on how formative education guides their leadership in a fast-changing world.

Meet the Alumnae Deans

Allyssa Harris, Dean and Professor, Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing

Dean and Professor, Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing

As dean at Prairie View A&M, Allyssa Harris leads the nursing school of the oldest state-supported HĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝U in Texas. An authority on adolescent sexual risk behaviors and Black women’s health, she earned three degrees at Boston College and taught at CSON for 14 years, serving as department chair and program director for the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner program.

Barbara Wolfe, Dean and Professor, University of Rhode Island College of Nursing

Dean and Professor, University of Rhode Island College of Nursing

An expert on intervention and relapse prevention for women with disordered eating, Barbara Wolfe was named dean of the University of Rhode Island (URI) College of Nursing in 2016. Prior to joining URI, she served as professor and associate dean for research at the Connell School, and as a lecturer at Harvard Medical School.

Lin Zhan, Dean and Professor, UCLA School of Nursing

Dean and Professor, UCLA School of Nursing

Before coming to UCLA, Lin Zhan held deanships at the University of Memphis Loewenberg College of Nursing and the School of Nursing at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health. A leading researcher on health equity and the promotion of diversity in higher education, she is also an honorary professor at 10 universities in her native China.

Q:ĚýĚýWhat does formative education mean to you?

CSON students in the Brown Family Clinical Lab

CSON students in the Brown Family Clinical Lab

Allyssa Harris: Formative education is about helping people understand who they are, who they want to be, and where they belong in the world. It’s not just about being a good nurse, it’s about being a good human being.

Barbara Wolfe: I think of formative education as having three pillars: scientific inquiry, academic excellence, and student formation, which develops students’ minds, talents, and unique personhood. The ultimate goal is service—helping students flourish so they can help others flourish.

Lin Zhan: Formative education, to me, is reflective education. It happens through ongoing engagement and communication, and by placing the learner at the center of the classroom. For faculty and leaders, it’s about listening to your students and asking, “Who are they as people? Is my approach helping them learn?” In my experience, most students want not just to know things, but to be able to synthesize what they know and conduct in-depth analysis. Formative education is about teaching those big-picture skills, too.

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Q:Ěý How can formative education inform patient care?

AH: As a nurse, you don’t just treat the disease; you treat the whole person. A patient might have hypertension, for example, but to provide good care, you need to understand their situation holistically. Maybe they don’t have access to money or decent food. Maybe they can’t pick up their medication because the city changed the bus line. Formative education prepares you to get to know your patients and understand what they’re going through.

It’s so exciting to have the chance to impact a whole community of faculty, staff, and students, and to know that each of them will go on to impact the lives of others.
Barbara E. Wolfe, Ph.D. ’95, Dean and Professor, University of Rhode Island College of Nursing

Q:Ěý How has your Connell School education influenced your approach to leadership?

BW: When I first started my Ph.D., I wasn’t sure that ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝â€™s courses on philosophy and epistemology were going to be relevant to me as a nurse. But over the course of my career, I’ve gone back to that intellectual foundation so often. As a leader, it helps me make decisions, and it gives me a language I can use to nurture the quest for learning in others and articulate my vision.

LZ: I learned so much from my dissertation chair, the renowned nursing theorist Sister Callista Roy. Along with a wealth of knowledge, she has tremendous humility. She showed us that it was possible to think about nursing at every level from the microscopic to the global. ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝ professors like Sister Roy and Dottie Jones cultivated good thinkers, and I aim to do the same at UCLA.

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Q:ĚýĚýWhat role does formative education play at the institution you currently lead?

Doctor of Nursing Practice students in the Maloney Hall simulation lab

Doctor of Nursing Practice students in the Maloney Hall simulation lab

AH: Prairie View A&M has such a rich legacy, and part of my job as dean is to be a lifelong learner—to listen to colleagues who’ve been here longer, and to my fellow nurses’ experiences of racism and resistance. I do incorporate a whole-person, social justice philosophy here, and I find that resonates with people. We’re building the next generation of diverse nurse leaders, and we know that having more diverse nurses means better outcomes and better advocacy for patients. The research proves it.

LZ: At UCLA School of Nursing, only 27 percent of our students are white. Every single one of our students has individual life experiences that can enrich the classroom, and I encourage my colleagues to bring those experiences out. When we connect nursing to the broader societal and cultural issues that matter to students, they feel empowered to learn and make meaning.

BW: Part of my goal at URI has been to create opportunities for students at a larger nursing school to engage with research and policy. We started experiential learning courses in Providence and abroad, faculty-student research collaborations, and annual trips to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing convention in D.C. It’s about creating a culture that embraces scientific inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge while keeping those things engaging, fun, and crucially—especially at a public institution—accessible and affordable for anyone who wants to become a nurse.

Post-pandemic, we’re living in a changed world. Right now, nurses have a huge opportunity to look outward—as our ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝ education encouraged us to do—and help the public.
Allyssa L. Harris, ’94, M.S. ’96, Ph.D. ’08, Dean and Professor, Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing

Q:ĚýĚýWhat challenges do you see facing nursing education today? How can we navigate them?

CSON students in the Brown Family Clinical Lab

DNP students with their professor

AH: Post-pandemic, we’re living in a changed world. Right now, nurses have a huge opportunity to look outward—as our ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝ education encouraged us to do—and help the public. We can educate our communities about the importance of vaccination and wellness, and in turn, we can also educate the broader public about the health issues facing our communities. Nurses see what’s happening daily in those communities, so we’re well positioned to advocate for system-wide policy change.

BW: Since March 2020, a lot of health professionals have left the workforce. The good news is that, simultaneously, we’ve also seen increased interest in nursing and NP roles. The challenge for nursing education is to educate these folks as quickly as possible without compromising the standards and outcomes we are striving for. One of the things URI is doing is offering a postgraduate certificate for nurses with a master’s degree to become credentialed nurse practitioners to better meet societal needs.

LZ: Along with the rising cost of living and rapid technological change, mental health is a huge issue today—and one that a whole-person approach can help us navigate. I believe that academic leaders have a responsibility to check in with both faculty and students regularly. Taking the time to ask, “How are you?” is essential, and so is the ability to see one another’s lives in their broader contexts.

I value formative education and continue to practice it—because it focuses on selflessness, and on being a good thinker and scientist for the greater good.
Lin Zhan, Ph.D. ’93, Dean and Professor, UCLA School of Nursing

Q:ĚýĚýWhat lessons do you want to share with future nurse leaders?

BW: Stay open to unexpected opportunities. When I was 21, I just wanted to be a nurse in the clinical setting with patients, because I felt I could make an impact there. But don’t underestimate the impact you can have in other roles. It’s so exciting to have the chance to impact a whole community of faculty, staff, and students, and to know that each of them will go on to impact the lives of others.

AH: Listen to your mentors, step out on a limb, and be willing to take a leap of faith. Before I accepted this deanship, I was hesitant, but one of my mentors said, “I think you can do this.” My faculty peers seemed to think so, too. I’m so glad I trusted them. Also, I always tell people that it’s okay to fall down. Everybody does; the important thing is to get up and keep going.

LZ: It boils down to leading with moral courage. At the end of the day, leadership is not about you. It’s about making decisions for the good of the students, the faculty, the school, the nursing profession, and the broader communities you serve. That’s why I value formative education and continue to practice it—because it focuses on selflessness, and on being a good thinker and scientist for the greater good. In that way, Boston College shaped my career and my thinking, and I’m grateful for that.

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