UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Kathleen Mastrian, associate professor of nursing at Penn State’s Shenango campus, is the recipient of the 2016 Undergraduate Program Leadership Award.
The award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated exemplary leadership benefiting a Penn State undergraduate degree program. Specifically, it recognizes those individuals who have major responsibilities for the delivery of undergraduate education within a unit and who are providing leadership that has transformed or revitalized the undergraduate program in some way.
Mastrian is a pioneer in the field of nursing informatics and is recognized as one of the top 15 professors in the field.
Decades ago, Mastrian realized the potential technology possessed in enhancing communication among health care providers as well as its ability to strengthen patient safety. Her journey to transform the industry began with the development and design of the first nursing informatics course, which became required for the baccalaureate program for registered nurses, known as the RN to BS major.
An accomplished writer who has written numerous articles in the field, Mastrian co-authored the award-winning book, "Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge," which won the Book of the Year Award from the American Journal of Nursing in 2010. Now in its fourth edition, the book has been utilized extensively across the U.S. in more than 200 colleges and also in 17 countries.
Mastrian is also a pioneer in how nursing is being taught at Penn State.
When Mastrian began teaching at Penn State in 1979, she quickly realized that the baccalaureate program was not the right fit for the practicing registered nurse. An expert in academic policies, she found solutions to barriers to changing the existing curriculum.
Next, she redesigned the primary junior- and senior-level nursing courses that would later become course-specific for registered nurses. Her strategy was to integrate the practicing nurses patient care experience with the theoretical and ethical components that were missing in the more practice-based hospital and associate degree-based curricula.
“I believe her biggest contribution has been in transforming the nursing curriculum to meet the needs of the adult practicing nurse who returns to college to complete their baccalaureate degree,” said a nominator.
Additionally, she’s instrumental in the development of the highly successful online curriculum for the RN to BS program being offered through Penn State’s World Campus, said a nominator.