By Amanda E.H. Pritchard
University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing alumnus Larry Z. Slater, PhD, MAc, RN-BC, CNE, FAAN (BSN 2008, PhD 2011), has been appointed Dean and Professor at the School of Nursing at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut.
As Dean, Slater’s focus is on preparing undergraduate and graduate students to become successful nursing leaders in health care while advancing the school’s research and scholarship initiatives by working closely with faculty, staff and students.
“I am truly honored and humbled to be Dean and Professor at the Quinnipiac University School of Nursing. The school’s goals align with my personal core values for nursing and education, including the creation of diverse, inclusive communities; positively impacting internal, local, and global communities; and nurturing students and faculty to be lifelong learners who maintain lifelong connections. I feel this alignment will allow me to serve the University, building on its outstanding reputation for nursing education and scholarship,” Slater said.
Slater serves on the UAB School of Nursing National Advisory Council and in 2020, he was named one of 70 Visionary Leaders. Grateful for his time and experience at the School, Slater credits UAB’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing and PhD programs, and the School’s faculty for preparing him well.
“At each level, faculty encouraged me to find my personal passion in nursing. This included participation in the BSN Honors Program, igniting my passion for honors education in nursing on which I have been focused during my academic career. It also included receiving my Certificate of Teaching in Nursing, while pursuing my PhD, that lit a fire for me to pursue an academic nursing career,” Slater said. “The UAB School of Nursing provided me with the essential foundations in curriculum development, learning science, and teaching and learning strategies that have helped me excel as an educator throughout my career. And the research chops I developed through expert guidance in UAB's PhD program have helped me maintain my scholarship in nursing and nursing education.”
When teaching, Slater strives to ensure his students achieve three critical areas: cultivation of a spirit of inquiry, a passion for their chosen profession and an innovation/design thinking mindset.
“Nursing education throws so much at students in a short period of time, making it extremely rigorous in terms of knowledge and skill acquisition, not to mention addressing key nursing qualities such as caring, compassion and empathy. It is more critical for students to leave my class knowing how to search for evidence-based answers, something they will require to be successful throughout their career,” Slater said. “Whether I am teaching a pathophysiology course, a community health course, a medical-surgical course, or a leadership and management course, I strive to model the passion I have for the course, its critical content and its relationship with the nursing profession.”
Focused on helping the next generation of nurses excel, Slater believes an eager learner leads to success.
“Students who demonstrate passion are often more successful in class, so building their passion for the course material, while igniting their overall passion for the profession is important for each and every class,” Slater said. “I encourage students to upend the status quo using outside the box thinking. I challenge them to seek out innovative solutions to questions that may arise within their course, in their clinical and simulation experiences, and in nursing practice and healthcare. This innovative mindset is essential for our graduates to transform health care, improving health outcomes through quality care while reducing overall health care costs.”
