USU Hires Associate Vice-Provost for Nursing Programs

Sharon K. Dingman has been named associate vice-provost for Nursing Programs at Utah State University. Dingman will also fulfill the role of professional practice professor in the Department of Biology.

Dingman has more than 20 years of administrative leadership, consulting and staff management experience in the nursing field. She brings a wealth of leadership and management knowledge to her new role at USU and hopes to be able to grow and expand the current program to include more students as well as have it offered at more locations around the state.

“My goal is to establish USU as a competitive and strong program in our regional campus system,” said Dingman. “We are not only looking for new nursing students but those that are already practicing and want to further their education to remain competitive in the job market.”

Dingman iterates that education and operations need to work together in order to incentivize students to go back to school. She hopes that offering classes via broadcast and online will help create more options for working students or those who wish to stay in their communities.

Dingman would also like to hire more faculty as current estimates predict that another nursing shortage will begin to occur around 2014-15 as more nurses retire with improvements in the economic recession and more BSN or higher prepared nurses are required to care for increasing populations.

“My responsibility is to build the nursing program and it’s not going to be just me,” said Dingman. “I am grateful to have the university’s support and look forward to working with my new colleagues to reach our goals.”

Dingman holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice, a master’s of science in nursing administration and a bachelor’s in nursing.

For more information, contact Sharon Dingman at 435-797-7033.

Writer: Paige Pagnucco, 435-797-1429, paige.pagnuco@usu.edu