Organization of the Institute
Director
Marlaine C. Smith, RN, PhD, AHN-BC, HWNC-BC, FAAN
Dr. Smith has a 48 year career in academic nursing. She is Professor Emerita at the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing at Florida Atlantic University where she served as dean from 2011-2019. Prior to joining FAU in 2006 she was on the faculty of the University of Colorado School of Nursing for 18 years, with 6 years of those as Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of the Center for Integrative Caring Practice. She held positions on the faculties of The Pennsylvania State University, LaRoche College, and Duquesne University.
Marlaine was born and raised in the Pittsburgh area where she earned a BSN from Duquesne University and two Master’s degrees in public health and nursing from the University of Pittsburgh. Her PhD in Nursing is from New York University. She is certified as an Advanced Holistic Nurse and integrative nurse coach.
Marlaine’s contributions to nursing can be clustered in two areas: developing knowledge related to processes and outcomes of caring-healing modalities, and analyzing, extending and applying existing nursing theories. Her research has focused on outcomes of touch as an expression of caring. Her work in theory development includes the development of a middle-range theory of unitary caring. She is the editor, coeditor or associate editor of four books: Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice, Caring in Nursing Classics, and Philosophies and Practices of Emancipatory Nursing: Social Justice Praxis, and A Handbook for Caring Science: Expanding the Paradigm.
In 1999 Marlaine received the NLN Martha E. Rogers’ Award for contributions to the advancement of nursing science. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.
Advisory Board
Anne Boykin, PhD, MN, BSN
Dr. Boykin is Professor Emeritus at Florida Atlantic University where she was Dean of the Christine E Lynn College of Nursing for almost 30 years. She is Director of the College’s Anne Boykin Institute for the Advancement of Caring in Nursing. This Institute provides global leadership for nursing education, practice and research grounded in caring; promotes the valuing of caring across disciplines; and supports the caring mission of the College. She is recognized internationally and nationally for her scholarship on caring. She has co-authored and edited several books, book chapters and articles focused on caring, transforming healthcare, nursing as a discipline and story as a method for studying nursing. Dr. Boykin is retired and serves as a consultant on caring-based healthcare transformation.
Charlotte D. Barry, PhD, RN; NCSN, FAAN
Dr. Barry is a Professor at the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Florida. Nationally certified in school nursing, Dr. Barry’s outstanding and sustained contribution to nursing has been the outcomes of her expertise in community nursing practice, education and research. She has been on the leading edge of developing school based health centers dedicated to overcoming barriers in the delivery of quality care to children and families. As Co-Director of the Center for School and Community Well Being, over $7 million in grants and contracts was secured to fund nurse managed school-based wellness centers and school nurse education programs in southeast U.S. The nurse managed centers in schools often provide the only ongoing access to health care for many children and families The outcomes of improved health, return to class rate and attendance served as the impetus for a substantial and sustained policy change resulting in a school nurse present at every public school in one of the largest school districts in the U.S. serving over 176,000 students.
The positive outcomes of Dr. Barry’s scholarship have transformed nursing practice through curricula change, community immersion and policy development. Her publications and presentations at national and international conferences have fostered understanding of the value of caring for the most vulnerable and impacted the professional practice of school nursing, now recognized as an expert practice and venue for access to affordable and ongoing healthcare for children and families in the US, Africa, and Haiti.
Susan J. Bulfin, DNP, ARNP, FNP-BC
Dr. Bulfin is an Associate Professor and Director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice and Nurse Practitioner (NP) Programs at the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing of Florida Atlantic University. Her work focuses on co-creating transformational, evidence-based, relevant learning experiences for NP students. Dr. Bulfin has been a nurse practitioner for over 35 years and involved in DNP program planning and development since 2007. She served as Research Project Director for a funded project entitled “Caring-based Healthcare Delivery Models” from 2003-2005, resulting in publications in nursing and medical journals and international presentations. Currently she serves as coordinator for a $2.1 million funded project “Caring-based Academic Practice Partnerships to Enhance Nurse Practitioners’ Readiness and Willingness to Practice with Rural and Underserved Populations.”
Howard Karl Butcher, RN; PhD
Dr. Butcher is a Professor, Director of the PhD in Nursing Program at Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, Florida Atlantic University and Associate Professor Emeritus as the University of Iowa College of Nursing. He began his academic career at Pacific Lutheran University as an Assistant Professor where he led the faculty in implementing a caring in nursing science-based curriculum. He earned a BS degree in Biology from Lebanon Valley College and his BSN from Thomas Jefferson University. He completed his MScN at the University of Toronto and his PhD in Nursing Science with a focus on the Science of Unitary Human Beings from The University of South Carolina. He is the current lead author of the Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC) 7e that has been translated in 11 different languages and is used to teach nursing interventions and guide nursing intervention testing research around the world. NIC has been implemented into the electronic healthcare record in more that 1700 hospitals globally to plan and document nursing care. His current interests include advancing the development of Rogerian and Unitary Caring Nursing Science; hermeneutic-phenomenological research; intervention testing research; continuing an NIH funded program of research testing written emotional expression (journaling) as an intervention to enhance meaning-making in family caregivers of persons with memory loss; testing transcendental meditation as a nursing intervention to enhance telomere activity and improve memory in persons with mild cognitive impairment; and the advancement of nursing theory and nursing languages in guiding nursing research, education, and practice.
W. Richard Cowling, III, RN, PhD, AHN-BC, SGAHN, ANEF, FAAN
Dr. Cowling, III is known as a nursing scholar with an interest and commitment to Martha Rogers’ science of unitary human beings. His development of the unitary appreciative inquiry methodology and subsequent work led to the creation of a praxis model for women in despair. Dr. Cowling’s primary contribution to the discipline of nursing stems from his research and practice work with women experiencing despair in a variety of contexts. His recent publications address embodied caring through mindfulness and mediation. Dr. Cowling currently serves as Editor of the Journal of Holistic Nursing and is a Scholar of the Global Academy of Holistic Nursing (SGAHN). Dr. Cowling is an NLN Academy of Nursing Education Fellow as well as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. Dr. Cowling is a Professor and The John Wymer Distinguished Professor in Caring Science at Chistine E. Lynn College of Nursing, Florida Atlantic University.
Joy Longo, PhD, RNC-NIC, CNE
Dr. Longo joined the faculty of the College of Nursing in 2006 as a clinical instructor and is currently an Associate Professor and Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Program. Dr. Longo worked in the Neonatal Intensive Care setting for 22 years, and maintains certification as a Neonatal Intensive Care nurse. Her extensive experience in the clinical setting led to her research interest in work environments and the relationship to outcomes. She is the recipient of an American Nurses Foundation/Julia Hardy RN Scholar grant for the development and testing of the Horizontal Violence Scale.
Dr. Longo teaches across programs in the College. She was recognized as a Master Teacher in 2013 and earned the Certified Nurse Educator (CNE) credential in 2021. In 2016, she became the interim Assistant Dean, Graduate Practice Programs, and in 2017 became the full-time Assistant Dean. In 2020, she transitioned into the role of Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Program. Dr. Longo remains active in service to the College of Nursing and to the University. She served as the inaugural College Liaison for the Distinction through Discovery (DTD) program for undergraduate research and served as chair of the Faculty Professional Development Committee for DTD from 2014-2015. She is currently a member of the University Steering Committee and the Faculty Senate.
Karethy
Edwards, DrPH, APRN, FNP-BC, FAAN
Dr. Edwards is the CEO of Caring-based Consultants in Grant Writing and Nursing Education. She has 47 years of experience in academic nursing with previous positions from instructor to tenured professor and co-founder of the Center for Cultural Diversity and Healthcare Excellence at the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing; professor and associate dean for academic programs at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), John F. Wymer Endowed Professor in Nursing and the inaugural Health Research Services Administrator designated inaugural CEO of the FAU Northwest Community Health Alliance Community Health Center. Dr. Edward’s clinical practice, teaching, and service is influenced by her foundational belief that nursing is a discipline grounded in caring. Caring inspires her teaching, practice and research which is aimed at promoting health equity and social justice. She is one of the founding members and past president of the Association of Black Nursing Faculty (ABNF), past member of the American Nurses Association and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration Minority Fellowship Program Advisory Board, and past member of the International Indigenous Nursing Researchers. She received a fellowship in Cultural Competency Leadership sponsored by the Health Research & Educational Trust of the American Hospital Association, a W.K. Kellogg Inter-professional Fellowship in Bioethics and induction as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. She is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in Nursing Education and Research (ABNF), the AMOCO Excellence in Teaching Award (University of Oklahoma), the DAISY Award (FAU), Fran and Earl Zeigler Outstanding Leadership in an Academic Setting, Nurses Hall of Fame (University of Texas Medical Branch), and Indigenous Nurse Leader presented by the International Indigenous Nurse Researchers.
Terry L. Eggenberger, PhD, RN, CNE, CNL, NEA-BC
Dr. Eggenberger is an Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing where she earned her baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral degrees. Her interests focus on how caring science can be integrated into nursing practice at the point of care. Dr. Eggenberger’s leading edge studies have investigated how to integrate caring science into teaching nursing using human simulator technologies, and resulted in the development of quantitative measurements of caring within this area. A natural evolution of Dr. Eggenberger’s interests has led her to focus on collaborative care grounded in caring science, and in particular, the evaluation of how relationships within and among health care teams influence the quality of interprofessional collaboration.
Nancey E.M. France, RN, PhD
Dr. France joined the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing in 2011 to share in the dance of caring persons through teaching, research/scholarship and service. She is currently the Assistant Dean, Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program. As a member of the advisory board for the Anne Boykin Institute for the Advancement of Caring in Nursing, Nancey is serving on the committee that is creating a mentorship program in caring science. She is the President for the International Association for Human Caring (IAHC) and has been very active in the IAHC for many years. Nancey’s research interest is nurse-to-nurse caring how the RN-BSN student may be influential in breaking this cycle of incivility in all nurse and healthcare settings.
Shirley C . Gordon PhD, RN, NCSN, AHN-BC, HWNC-BC
Dr. Gordon is a Professor at the Florida Atlantic University, Christine E, Lynn College of Nursing and coordinates the Advanced Holistic Nursing MSN. She is nationally certified in the areas of School Nursing, Advanced Holistic Nursing and Health and Wellness Nurse Coaching. As a theorist and Nurse Scientist, her current areas of interest include caring for persons experiencing conditions involving stigma and chronicity and the health impact of exposure to environmental toxins. She has published widely in national and international nursing journals and has received multiple state and federal research grants. Founded in 1996, Dr. Gordon directs the Head Lice Treatment and Prevention Project and maintains an active telehealth and consultant practice related to the project. Dr. Gordon is also actively engaged in professional organizations. She is a past IAHC President and current Education Committee Chair. Through IAHC, she has developed multiple virtual education formats designed to engage persons in the dissemination of caring science around the world.
Claudia Grobbel DNP RN CNL
Dr. Grobbel is an Associate Professor of Nursing at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. She received her BSN from Wayne State University and her Master’s and Doctoral Degree from Oakland University. Claudia considers herself a ‘late in life’ academic, having spent the first two-thirds of her nursing career in clinical practice and nursing leadership. She brings this practical knowledge into her classroom. Claudia began her caring practice journey during her doctoral studies investigating how pre-nursing students viewed caring practice. This study reinforced the need for academia to include caring modalities in traditional nursing education. Since that time, she has continued to study the link between caring practices and quality patient outcomes. She offers a ‘Caring Studio’ to undergraduate students where she merges the art and science of intentional caring practices in a series of workshops based off the principles of Caring for Self, Colleagues and Patients/Families.
Dawn M. Hawthorne, PhD, RN
Dr. Hawthorne is an Assistant Professor and RN-BSN Coordinator at the Florida Atlantic University Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and is a Board member of the International Association for Human Caring. Her practice interests focus on promoting spirituality in health and healing and demonstrating the significance of spirituality to holistic care nursing. Research investigation included using spirituality as growing in caring to understand the grief and resultant mental health symptoms experienced by bereaved parents; to identify differences in bereaved parents’ use of spirituality as growing in caring by racial/ethnic and/or religion groups for neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)/pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) death; and exploring nurses’ perceptions of their spirituality and the support they provide to parents’ use of spiritual practices in the neonatal intensive care unit. Dr. Hawthorne recently received funding from the Association of Women’s Health Obstetric and Neonatal Nursing (AWHONN) Every Woman, Every Baby Award to explore the effectiveness of mindfulness in maternal care to mitigate stress and anxiety and improve metal well-being.
Beth King, PhD, RN
Dr. King is an assistant professor at the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, Florida Atlantic University. She earned her BSN from Grand View College, MS at University of Maryland and her PhD at Iowa State University. Her lifelong practice has focused on the area of mental health nursing and community nursing grounded in caring. As an educator, her extensive experience in caring practice has served to stimulate and mentor students across the spectrum. Dr. King is co-author of the book “Nursing Case Studies in Caring: Across the Practice Spectrum” which illuminates her caring pedagogy through the use of nursing situations. A natural extension to her practice/teaching scholarship is her interest in art and aesthetics in the health sciences, and she integrates this natural flow throughout her scholarship. Her research focuses on the study of caring and education, and persons living with mental health issues among various cultures. Dr. King is a board member of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, Florida Chapter and has received the Faculty Daisy Award and the Excellence and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching from Florida Atlantic University.
Colleen Maykut, DNP, RN
Dr. M aykut, over the last 38 years of her career, has upheld the values of professional nursing and acted as an advocate for healthcare system transformation and as a knowledge disrupter for nursing education reformation. She has been a faculty member at MacEwan for 26 years, teaching in all four years of the program. Her contributions to nursing science focus on curriculum design and student success grounded in Caring Sciences, and nursing theory and philosophy. She has been an attendee of the ABI Summer Institute since 2022 and an IAHC member since 2005. She currently serves as the Associate Editor of the International Journal of Caring Sciences and is on the editorial review board for three other journals. She is a peer-reviewer for an additional five nursing journals and adjudicates conference presentations and educational awards for the Canadian Nurses Foundation, the International Association for Human Caring, and Sigma Theta Tau – the International Honour Society of Nursing. She was honoured as an Inaugural Fellow from the Canadian Academy of Nursing in 2020 for her contributions to nursing scie nce and education.
Mary T. Packard, PhD, RN
Dr. Packard is an associate professor at Notre Dame of Maryland University School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned her BSN from Georgetown University, MSN from The Catholic University of America, and her PhD from University of Maryland. Most recently, Mary has dedicated herself with her colleagues to the creation of an entry-level baccalaureate nursing program grounded and inspirited by caring science. In the MSN program, she teaches courses in curriculum and pedagogy grounded in caring. Mary is committed to circle practice as a way of living caring with her students and colleagues. With her students, Mary has come to understand ‘being-with’ in teaching nursing as entering sacred space, comfort in the presence of vulnerability, opening to the ‘inn-between’, and soul friendship.
Marilyn “Dee” Ray, RN, BSN, MSN, MA, PhD, CTN-A, FSfAA, FAAN
Dr. Ray is Professor Emeritus at Florida Atlantic University, Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, Boca Raton, Florida. She holds a diploma in Nursing from St. Joseph Hospital, Hamilton, Canada; Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Nursing from the University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado; Master of Arts, in Cultural Anthropology from McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada; a Doctor of Philosophy in Transcultural Nursing from the University of Utah College of Nursing, Salt Lake City, Utah; and an honorary degree from Nevada State College, Henderson, Nevada. Ray has held faculty positions at the University of San Francisco, University of California San Francisco, McMaster University, the University of Colorado, and the Eminent Scholar positions at Florida Atlantic University and Virginia Commonwealth University, and Professorial and Professor Emeritus positions at Florida Atlantic University. In addition, Ray attended Ethics Courses at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and studied with the theoretical physicist, Dr. F. David Peat on Complexity Science at the Pari Center for New Learning in Pari, Italy. Ray is a Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology (FSfAA), and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN). She is certified as an Advanced Transcultural Nurse (CTN-A), and was awarded the position of a Transcultural Nursing Scholar. For over 30 years, Ray served the United States of America in the field of aerospace nursing administration, practice, education, and research in the United States Air F orce Reserve, Nurse Corps and retired as a Colonel. She attended a program in space education in prepar ation for the potential role of “nurses in space” at the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Ray is featured in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World. Ray has researched, presented and published widely on the subject of caring science, transcultural caring, and caring ethics in complex organizations, primarily hospitals, and discovered the Theory of Bureaucratic Caring and advanced the Theory of Transcultural Caring Dynamics in Nursing and Health Care. Ray is a charter member and on the Board of Directors of the International Association for Human Caring (IAHC). The Droesbeke Caring award presented annually to an international student of the IAHC was created in honor of her late husband, James L. Droesbeke who was dedicated to the advancement of the science and art of human caring. Ray’s books include, A study of caring within an institutional culture: The discovery of the Theory of Bureaucratic Caring; Transcultural caring dynamics in nursing and health care; and with her colleagues, Davidson and Turkel, Nursing, caring, and complexity science: For human-environment well being (2011American Journal of Nursing, Book of the Year Award). Ray also serves on the boards of the Global Qualitative Nursing Research (on line journal), Qualitative Health Research, and the Journal of Art and Aesthetics in Nursing and Health Sciences. She joined the Anne Boykin Institute for the Advancement of Caring as a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Learning Partnerships: Faculty Development Committee in 2013.
Savina Schoenhofer, PhD, RN
Dr. Schoenhofer completed the BSN at Wichita State University in 1972, the MN at Wichita State in 1981 and PhD at Kansas State University in 1983. She began the study of caring in nursing in 1984 on her appointment to the Faculty of Nursing at Florida Atlantic University. In the summer of 1985, she attended her first conference on caring and has been a member of the International Association for Human Caring since its inception. As a member of the Faculty and chair of the curriculum committee of Nursing at FAU, she was a leader in the efforts to refine the caring-based curriculum in preparation for initial national accreditation. At the conclusion of that process, she and her colleague, Anne Boykin continued to study and develop an understanding of caring in nursing that led to the 1993 publication of the theory of Nursing As Caring, with an updated version in 2001. Dr. Schoenhofer began her nursing career, first as student and then as faculty at Wichita State University where she taught nursing for 10 years. In 1996, she joined the Faculty of Nursing at Alcorn State University and later the University of Mississippi. Savina, who lives in Jackson, MS retired from teaching in 2014, but continues to study, write and collaborate in nursing education, research and practice grounded in caring, and the theory of Nursing As Caring. She was a founding Board Member of the Anne Boykin Institute for the Advancement of Caring in Nursing. More about Savina Schoenhofer and the theory of Nursing As Caring can be found at http://www.nursingascaring.com/
Kathleen Valentine, PhD, RN
Dr. Valentine is Director and Associate Dean of Clemson University’s School of Nursing and Chief Nursing Academic Officer of Greenville Health System. Valentine is an international leader having held positions as Dean of nursing at the University of New Brunswick , Canada as well associate dean
positions at both Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Professions and Florida State. Valentine’s research focuses on the economic value of human caring, and interprofessional collaboration. within complex health care organizations. She is past president of the International Association for Human Caring and founding editor for the International Journal for Human Caring, and co- author of “Health Care System Transformation for Nursing and Health Care Leaders: Implementing a Culture of Caring.”
Zane Wolf, PhD, RN, FAAN
Dr. Wolf is Dean Emerita and Professor, School of Nursing and Health Sciences at La Salle University. She returned to full-time teaching in the fall of 2012. She practiced as a critical care and medical surgical nurse and has worked in nursing education, teaching in diploma, associate, baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral nursing programs. She teaches courses on patient safety, nursing research, evidence-based practice, and caring and continues to conduct qualitative and quantitative research on medication errors, nurse caring, nursing education concerns, and other topics. Dr. Wolf is a board member of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices and most recently, Fox Chase Cancer Center. She is member of the Patient Safety Committee of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. She reviews manuscripts for various nursing and healthcare journals. Dr. Wolf has been an editor of the International Journal for Human Caring since 1999. She is a former board member and past president of the International Association for Human Caring. Dr. Wolf has hosted three International Caring Conferences in Philadelphia, PA, USA. The Christine E. Lynne College of Nursing of Florida Atlantic University honored her by designating her as Caring Scholar.
Mary Ellen Wright, PhD, APRN, CPNP-PC
Dr. Wright is an advanced registered nurse practitioner in the specialty areas of pediatric and women’s health. Her 37 years of clinical practice have been in the areas of caring for pregnant women, infants and children in settings serving families with complex social and health needs. Dr. Wright’s current research focus on her original theory of calls for caring in complex situations. The populations of her research include families in the complex sit uations of substance use disorder, domestic violence and child maltreatment with a special focus on pregnant and parenting women, their infants and children. Dr. Wright has multiple grants to support education to nurse practitioners and medical students on the topic of substance use disorder. Dr. Wright also has researched key elements of nurse practitioner integration into practice and is a co-investigator on a grant to development of nurse practitioners to serve rural regions. Dr. Wright is faculty of a global classroom on addiction, serves on the expert panel for land grant universities response to the opioid crisis, was the associate producer on a documentary ethnographic film “Original Body of Pain” stories of mothers with addiction and published the book “I Do Love My Baby: Stories of mothers with addiction and recovery.”