February 03, 2023
Nancy Meedzan, DNP to lead nursing department at Providence College
Nancy L. Meedzan, DNP, RN, CNE, NEA-BC has been named chair of the new Department of Nursing at Providence College. She has been dean of the Cummings School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, since January 2019.
Meedzan, who will join the college on July 1, also will be professor of nursing on the PC faculty. PC’s first nursing students will begin studies in August.
“Dr. Meedzan personifies the characteristics we hoped to find in the person to fill this critical role,” said Kyle J. McInnis, Sc.D., dean of PC’s School of Nursing and Health Sciences. “She is a proven leader with vast clinical knowledge and a demonstrated commitment to high-quality nursing education in the context of interdisciplinary academic environments focused on the holistic development of students —exactly what we offer here at PC.”
Under Meedzan’s leadership, the Cummings School has seen increases in enrollment, degree programs offered, and success rates on the national nursing licensing examination. She is president of the Massachusetts Association of Colleges of Nursing, an organization comprising the deans of all nursing programs in the state, and an evaluator for the New England Commission of Higher Education.
“I am honored and excited to be leading the new nursing program at Providence College and joining the Friar community,” Meedzan said. “Rhode Island has a very special place in my heart, it is my home state, and I couldn’t imagine a better way of returning home.”
“My vision for the Providence College nursing program will be a commitment to academic excellence and providing nursing students with practical experiences across all spheres of care and globally,” she said. “The nursing curriculum, combined with the liberal arts core embedded in the Catholic and Dominican tradition, will ensure nursing students are prepared for practice with immediate impact as healers and leaders in providing patient care. I am confident that PC’s nursing program will be recognized with distinction in Rhode Island and nationally.”
After graduating from Boston College in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, Meedzan began a nearly 20-year nursing career working as a registered nurse at several Rhode Island and Massachusetts hospitals and medical facilities. Her academic career began at Endicott, where she was appointed an adjunct faculty member in 2004. She became an assistant professor in 2006 and advanced through the faculty ranks, becoming dean three years ago.
She has taught at North Shore Community College, Northern Essex Community College, and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences University. She earned a master’s degree in nursing at Salem State University in 1999 and a doctor of nursing practice degree from Regis College in 2012.
At Endicott, she has taught 18 different nursing courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
A committed scholar whose primary interest is in global health, Meedzan is co-investigator of an international study on the impact of COVID-19 on patients living with HIV. She is co-editor of the textbook Global Health Nursing in the 21st Century. She has taken students on short-term immersion experiences to Guatemala, South Africa, and the Dominican Republic to study the delivery of compassionate nursing care in places challenged to provide healthcare resources.
