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Martha M. Scheckel, PhD, RN, Vice Dean for Administration is internationally and nationally known for her transformative research and leadership to advance the science of nursing education. She was an invited to serve on the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Task Force to revise the “Essentials” series, resulting in the new “The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education.” She completed the foundational literature review for Nurse Educator Competencies: Creating an Evidence-Based Practice for Nurse Educators (2005) and, through invitation, contributed to NLN Core Competencies for Nurse Educators: A Decade of Influence. Dr. Scheckel has served as the Chief Nursing Administrator at two universities: Founding Director of Nursing and Professor, University of St. Thomas, Morrison Family College of Health, Susan S. Morrison School of Nursing in St. Paul Minnesota, and Dean and Professor, Viterbo University, College of Nursing, Health and Human Behavior in La Crosse Wisconsin. Her experience in leadership at two Catholic Universities and her commitment to nursing education grounded in faith with respect for the dignity of the human person guides her current leadership appointment at the Conway School of Nursing of The Catholic University of America where with the collaboration of faculty leaders, she oversees academic programs from the baccalaureate to doctoral levels as well as professional programs.
Dr. Scheckel has nearly 20 years of academic nursing experience. In addition to her national leadership, she has held various state leadership positions to advance nursing education. Her research in nursing education serves as a guide to curriculum reform. For example, her qualitative research examining how nursing students experience the assessment of suicidal ideation revealed how students can be guided to assess the whole patient in every encounter. Dr. Scheckel is an author in seminal texts in nursing education including Teaching in Nursing: A Guide for Faculty, Elsevier Inc., which has been internationally disseminated and translated into Japanese. Her program of research has also focused on improving patient education for underserved populations in rural communities with limited access to healthcare resources. Her study of the patient education experiences of rural community-dwelling persons following the time from cardiac surgery to recovery at home revealed the many challenges experienced by this population and the critical need to incorporate these experiences into patient education. She has been senior personnel for Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funded nursing and behavioral health workforce development grants and has been awarded local, regional, state and national funding for studies in nursing and patient education. Dr. Scheckel is a sought-after curriculum consultant and has provided presentations on nursing education at international and national nursing conferences.