Dean Sullivan-Marx, who is known for her leadership and innovation in caring for older adults, is a Professor of Scholarly Practice and Associate Dean for Practice & Community Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where she holds the Shearer Endowed Term Chair in Healthy Community Practice. She will assume the deanship of the NYU College of Nursing on July 1, 2012.
Robert Berne, NYU’s Executive Vice President for Health, and Charles N. Bertolami, the Herman Robert Fox Dean of NYU’s College of Dentistry, today announced the appointment of Eileen M. Sullivan-Marx Ph.D., C.R.N.P., R.N., F.A.A.N, as Dean of NYU’s College of Nursing.
Dean Sullivan-Marx, who is known for her leadership and innovation in caring for older adults, is a Professor of Scholarly Practice and Associate Dean for Practice & Community Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where she holds the Shearer Endowed Term Chair in Healthy Community Practice. She will assume the deanship of the NYU College of Nursing on July 1, 2012.
Dr. Berne said, “We had many excellent candidates for this post. Eileen stood out for the excellence of her scholarship, her intellectual prowess, her compelling teaching, and her demonstrable leadership abilities. Attracting someone of her caliber and experience to the deanship is a validation of the direction in which we have been moving the College of Nursing. On behalf of the NYU community, I welcome and congratulate her.
“I want to thank Judi Haber, who has served as Interim Dean since July 1, 2011. She demonstrated great leadership and dedication during the past year. I don’t think the College could have been in better hands than Judi’s; the University is grateful to her.”
Dean Bertolami said, “The recruitment of Eileen to lead the College of Nursing at this pivotal time adds momentum to the College’s ability to shape the future of the nursing profession. All of us at the College of Dentistry look forward with great anticipation to working with her to expand opportunities for interdisciplinary health sciences education and scientific partnership resulting from the 2005 alliance that created a College of Nursing within the College of Dentistry.
“I want to thank all the members of the search committee, and especially Professor Hila Richardson, who chaired it. She and the other committee members did an excellent job, bringing us a truly outstanding candidate – a testament to their hard work and great judgment.”
At Penn, Dr. Sullivan-Marx currently oversees the School of Nursing's practice and community mission through oversight of the school’s Program of All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly (PACE), its Living Independently For Elders (LIFE) program, the Healthy in Philadelphia Initiative, Penn Nursing Consultation Service, the Penn Council of Nurses, and the Center for Professional Development. The LIFE program -- a nurse-managed program -- allows several hundred older adults in West Philadelphia who are eligible for nursing home care to remain at home with quality care while saving costs. She has integrated and translated science by setting the LIFE on a new policy stage in Pennsylvania and the nation recognized by the American Academy of Nursing as an Edge Runner Program and by the Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Foundation Innovative Model Award. This program under her leadership has been recognized in the Institute of Medicine and RWJ Foundation’s Initiative on the Future of Nursing and is considered by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) as a model to grow to scale nationally. Dr. Sullivan-Marx has been appointed as a Senior Advisor to CMS through her 2010-12 Health & Aging Policy Fellowship to work with the CMS Federal Coordinated Health Care Office to grow the LIFE/PACE model nationally. At Penn, she has led award-winning efforts to engage the School of Nursing and the University with its immediate neighboring community in West Philadelphia and building elder friendly urban environments in collaboration with community organizations, the University City & Community Relations Department and the Penn Institute for Urban Research.
Her research and policy leadership focuses on outcomes of care for frail older adults, sustainable models of care using advanced practice nurses locally and globally, and health policy in community-based, long-term care settings. To facilitate improved outcomes through the use of advanced practice nurses, Dr. Sullivan-Marx has conducted the only study evaluation nurse practitioner responses in the methods used to establish the Medicare Fee Schedule through relative work values. Dr. Sullivan-Marx has studied factors that promote and prevent exercise in the community for frail older adults finding that limitations in activities of daily living and lower economic status contribute to less exercise. At Penn, she is the Director of the Hartford Center for Geriatric Nursing Excellence. She and has garnered federal funding as PI on grants from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), NIH, and foundations including the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
Dr. Sullivan-Marx’s impact has been felt as an author, editor, and contributor to numerous scholarly works, journal articles, and books, including Nurse Practitioners: Evolution and Future of Advanced Practice, 5th edition (2010); Leadership and Management Skills for Long Term Care (2008); and Nurse Practitioners, 4th edition (2003). She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Nursing Scholarship and she is the Senior Associate Editor of Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice. She is also a peer reviewer for a number of scholarly journals, including the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and The Gerontologist.
She has won numerous national and international awards and honors, including most recently: Marie Hippensteel Lingeman Award for Excellence in Nursing Practice, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society, 2011; Distinguished Alumni of the University of Rochester School of Nursing, Advocacy-Legislative Award, Pennsylvania State Nurses Association, 2010; Eastern Nursing Research Society; John A. Hartford Foundation; Geriatric Nursing Research Award, 2008; among others.
Dr. Sullivan-Marx began her clinical career in 1972 In 1980 she became a primary care nurse practitioner, starting three geriatric nurse practitioner practices including her own primary care practice in New Hampshire. In She completed her PhD at Penn where she was Director of the adult health nurse practitioner program at Penn and tenured in 2001. In 2003, she was appointed to her current position of Associate Dean for Practice and Community Affairs.
In addition to her PhD, she earned her BSN (1976) from the University of Pennsylvania, and her MS (1980) from the University of Rochester. She is married to Kenneth Marx, MD, an emergency physician at Reading Hospital, and the couple have two grown sons, Harry and Daniel.
About the New York University College of Nursing:
The College of Nursing is one of the leading nursing programs in the United States. It offers a Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Master of Arts and Post-Master’s Certificate Programs; a Doctor of Philosophy in Research Theory and Development, and a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. For more information, visit www.nyu.edu/nursing.
About New York University College of Dentistry:
Founded in 1865, New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD) is the third oldest and the largest dental school in the US, educating more than 8 percent of all dentists. NYUCD has a significant global reach and provides a level of national and international diversity among its students that is unmatched by any other dental school.