Molloy College welcomes new dean to School of Nursing

Dr. Marcia R. Gardner will serve as the new dean and a professor of the Barbara H. Hagan School of Nursing, Molloy College announced last month.

With more than 30 years of experience in nursing higher education, Gardner has held faculty and academic administration appointments at a variety of institutions, and has been involved in nursing education at all levels, from pre-licensure through doctoral. She has a broad child-nursing background related to the care of developmentally vulnerable infants and children, and infants and young children with special healthcare needs.

She will lead a prominent department. In 2016, Molloy College was ranked No. 1 in nursing nationwide, according to a study done by College Factual, a college ranking organization. The No. 1 recognition — determined according to the quality and variety of available learning resources, as well as the success students find after graduating — came after years of Molloy being within the top five nursing schools in the country.

Gardner is a graduate of Georgetown University, New York University, and the doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She completed a LEND fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a Pediatric Bioethics Certificate Program through Children’s Mercy Hospital/University of Missouri Kansas City Medical School.

Her research interests and passions extend to infants and children with special healthcare needs, mothering and parenting, and developmental disabilities, as well as clinical teaching in nursing education. She has been primary and co-investigator on studies of family-related issues in developmental disabilities and autism, and has published and presented work on mothering, developmental vulnerabilities, nursing education, and interviewing methods in research.

Gardner is co-editor of the first nursing textbook on lifespan care of individuals with autism, as well as the author of a book focused on clinical teaching in nursing and health sciences. She has also been honored as a winner of a Journalism of Nursing Education Top Teaching Tools award.