{"id":29,"date":"2022-04-01T02:20:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T02:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oer.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/promotinginnovationsineducation\/chapter\/patricia-chivertons-case-transforming-a-professional-school-at-the-brink-of-closure\/"},"modified":"2025-03-04T18:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T18:38:09","slug":"patricia-chivertons-case-transforming-a-professional-school-at-the-brink-of-closure","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/oer.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/promotinginnovationsineducation\/chapter\/patricia-chivertons-case-transforming-a-professional-school-at-the-brink-of-closure\/","title":{"raw":"6. Patricia Chiverton's case: Transforming a professional school at the brink of closure","rendered":"6. Patricia Chiverton’s case: Transforming a professional school at the brink of closure"},"content":{"raw":"

PART III. Case studies of entrepreneurial educators in schools and universities<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

\u25ca<\/p>\r\n

CHAPTER 6.<\/font><\/p>\r\n

Patricia Chiverton\u2019s case: Transforming a professional school at the brink of closure<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\r\n

Raffaella Borasi<\/em><\/p>\r\n

(with contributions from Michelle Ames and Frank Beltram)<\/em><\/p>\r\n \r\n

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Pat\u2019s Profile<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

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As Pat Chiverton became dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Rochester, a professional school within a highly decentralized private research university, this academic unit was in dire financial straits.\u00a0 During her nine years as dean, Pat was able to totally \u201cturn around\u201d this situation through a series of innovations which included, among many others, starting new visionary programs while closing down traditional ones where the school could not be as competitive, doing aggressive fundraising, and developing \u201cbusiness lines\u201d within the school as a way to develop and test new models of health care as well as to generate new sources of revenues to support teaching and research.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

6.1 Pat\u2019s story<\/strong><\/h1>\r\n

\u00a0 6.1.1. Introduction to Pat\u2019s case<\/h1>\r\nThis chapter reports on the case-study of Patricia Chiverton, the dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Rochester from 1999 to 2008.\u00a0 Pat\u2019s effectiveness as an academic leader is unquestionable, as she moved her school from the brink of closure to being recognized as one of the most successful and innovative nursing schools in the country (as documented in Figure 6.1).\u00a0 Her story also makes clear that this success was the result of a remarkable number of radical innovations that she promoted during her 9-year tenure as dean.\r\n\r\nA psychiatric nurse by training and the holder of a Doctor of Education degree, throughout her career Pat demonstrated a relentless commitment to improving health and health care. \u00a0Pat advocated for and concretely worked towards developing new models of health care focusing on health promotion rather than disease management.\u00a0 She also recognized the significance of the many changes that have taken place in the health fields in the past few decades\u2014most notably technological developments that have opened up unprecedented possibilities for delivering health care\u2014 along with the current nursing shortage. Furthermore, she believed that nurses should take a proactive role in the development of these new models of health care, as they have the knowledge, attitude and talent to do so.\u00a0 The following quote well articulates and substantiates this position:\r\n

\u201cI really believe with the shortage of nurses we can\u2019t provide care in the future the way we\u2019re doing it today. So we need to engage with the public, teach them how to become better advocates for themselves, and that\u2019s health promotion and wellness, that\u2019s what nurses have always done.\u201d (Pat)<\/em><\/p>\r\nPat also believed that schools of nursing have a critical role to play in the future of health care in two major ways.\u00a0 These include first of all contributing to the developments of new models of health care through their research and innovative practice, combined with developing and offering training programs to prepare future nurses for the new roles thus created for them.\r\n

\u201cWe want to be on the cutting edge end and we want to pilot the future of nursing \u2013 see what works, see what doesn\u2019t work, take risks.\u201d (Pat)<\/em><\/p>\r\nBeing the Dean of a School of Nursing in a private research university with a large Medical Center provided Pat with unique opportunities to put her vision into action. The highly decentralized structure of the University of Rochester \u2013 where each academic unit is fully responsible for all its revenues and expenses, and the Dean acts effectively as the CEO of that unit (while also reporting to the Provost\/Medical Center CEO) \u2013 also provided Pat with considerable leeway to act entrepreneurially. Yet she experienced many of the same challenges and tensions shared by most academic leaders in higher education institutions\u2014as she struggled to achieve the difficult balance between academic mission (in terms of research, teaching, and clinical enterprise) and fiscal responsibilities, dealt with a tradition of individual faculty autonomy and the constraints imposed by faculty jurisdiction over curricular decisions, and had to operate within an academic culture not used to change and quick decision-making.\r\n\r\nIn Figure 6.1 we reported selected information about the UR\u2019s School of Nursing (abbreviated as SON hereafter) at the time of Pat\u2019s deanship.\u00a0 We hope this information will help readers better understand this context, and also better appreciate the significance of Pat\u2019s activities and achievements during her 9-year tenure as dean.\u00a0 It is also important to note SON\u2019s history of being a pioneer in their field, as its founding dean, Loretta Ford, developed the first \u201cintegrated model\u201d of nursing that bridges across education, research and practice in the 1970\u2019s, as well as the new role of nurse practitioner in the 1980\u2019s.\r\n\r\nUnlike most of the other entrepreneurial educators featured in this book, Pat explicitly thought of her activity in terms of entrepreneurship \u2013 at least at the time of our study.\u00a0 Being familiar with the concepts and literature on business entrepreneurship, she could draw explicit connections to both in our interviews \u2013 as illustrated in several of the quotes reported in this chapter, and the following one in particular:\r\n

\u201cI always believed that you can do anything you want to do, and you know, whether you have the resources or not, if you create it, it\u2019s going to happen and that\u2019s always been the case.\u201d (Pat)<\/em><\/p>\r\nFigure 6.1. <\/strong>UR School of Nursing Profile<\/em> (as of 2008)<\/em>\r\n

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Historical notes:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n