Dr. Bea Kalisch to Utilize Creativity and Innovation in New Evaluative Appointment
Primary goals will include the betterment of undergraduate education at Michigan, as well as increased graduate school enrollment.
Dr. Bea Kalisch’s role in the School of Nursing is shifting in a manner that will allow her to fully employ her innovative methods. As Director of Education Evaluation and Innovation, Dr. Kalisch will be coming up with new methods for evaluating and enhancing the educational programs at the Michigan School of Nursing, and finding ways to encourage Michigan undergraduates to pursue a graduate degree in nursing.
“I have a long history of being here and being in academia, and a reputation for being creative and innovative,” Dr. Kalisch said. As she is transitioning into this role, her first task will be to employ those qualities in the development of an evaluation plan, which is not an easy task: “It’s very hard to do educational evaluation. There aren’t good tools out there to measure it”
A key role in this appointment will be to assess what is stopping students from pursing graduate education. To do this, Dr. Kalisch will speak individually with the students, “asking them what they think, but also asking the staff and mentors and other stakeholders how they feel our students are doing.”
While it is vital to hear back from the students, Dr. Kalisch also explained the importance of emphasizing to them the need for nurses with graduate degrees. “In nursing there is a real need for a greater number of masters and doctorate-prepared nurses,” Dr. Kalisch said.
But beyond emphasizing the importance of continuing nursing education, there is a broader, bigger goal to Dr. Kalisch’s new appointment: “We want to improve the quality of the undergraduate program … and see if our new approach to undergraduate education is improving the quality, “ she said.
She expressed optimism over the Michigan School of Nursing’s evolving academic philosophy: “They will have more hands on experience, feel more confident, feel just better educationally in terms of their ability to think critically,” Dr. Kalisch said.
As the University of Michigan School of Nursing is constantly improving itself through expansion, new methods, and new initiatives, Dr. Kalisch will play a vital and important role in ensuring that the School continues to provide for an atmosphere for its students that is welcoming, supporting, academically challenging, and motivating.
