By Sarah Morgan Johnson
Portraits of all five deans who have shaped the history of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing will soon be on display together. Recently, the School unveiled the latest additions, portraits of Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Maria R. Shirey, PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, ANEF, FACHE, FNAP, FAAN, and Dean and Professor Emerita Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN, who retired in 2022.
In 1975, the portraits of the first two to hold the position, Professor Emerita Florence Hixson EdD, RN, FAAN, and Dean and Professor Emerita Marie O’Koren EdD, MSN, FAAN, were completed and unveiled at the School. In 1990, the portrait of Dean and Professor Emerita Rachel Booth, PhD, RN, was unveiled. Now, all five deans will appear in the School’s Gallery of Deans in its Legacy Hall, their side-by-side portraits honoring their unique legacies of leadership. The hall also features displays that showcase the School’s rich history.
“This is such an important area in our School,” Shirey said. “It not only is a tribute and testament to the impact our School has had on the nursing profession for the past 75 years, it also shows how each dean has uniquely contributed to the mission, vision and values of the UAB School of Nursing. And shows how they have done so while building upon the contributions of the other deans based upon the needs of the School at the time, with a vision well into the future.”
At Booth’s portrait unveiling, Professor Emerita and former Associate Dean for Graduate Programs Jean Kelley, EdD, RN, FAAN, described the first three deans and their role in the School’s history. She called Hixson the “architect,” O’Koren the “great expander” and Booth the “refiner and strategist.” As the “architect,” Hixson was first dean and oversaw the School’s move from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham. O’Koren earned the title of the “great expander,” as she grew enrollment, increased the number of master’s degree tracks and developed the first doctoral nursing program in the Southeast. Booth was the “refiner and strategist,” as she founded the School’s Board of Visitors, developed groundbreaking nurse practitioner programs and helped establish the School as a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre.
Following in the footsteps of the first three deans, Harper has been described as an “evolutionary innovator,” and Shirey as an “entrepreneurial relationship builder.” Harper oversaw the School’s state-of-the-art building expansion, created the first National Advisory Council, developed new educational programs and expanded the School’s global impact. Since assuming the role of dean in 2022, Shirey’s interprofessional perspective and concentration on nurse-led health care initiatives and leadership science have shaped her tenure.
Dr. Florence Hixson, the Architect
Hixson was the first dean of the UAB School of Nursing, serving from 1950 until her retirement in 1970. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing education from Columbia in 1931 and a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1939. In the 1940’s, she began work in a doctoral program in education at Columbia University .
In 1949, the Alabama state legislature authorized the creation of a four-year baccalaureate nursing program at the Tuscaloosa campus of the University of Alabama, and Hixson was hired as the school’s first dean by University of Alabama President John Gallalee. She led the opening of the School as its only faculty member for the first year-and-a-half and taught its three programs; a traditional baccalaureate, an RN-to-BSN for registered nurses and a centralized program of teaching social and biological sciences to students in seven Alabama hospital-based programs.
Hixson established the school’s Master of Science in Nursing program in Administration of Nursing Education in 1955. She also established a major in teaching of maternal and child health nursing and statewide programs for tuberculosis nursing education. In 1964, she received external funding to help integrate mental health concepts into the entire curriculum. Both programs served not only the school’s students but also diploma school students from around the state.
In 1967, Hixson led the school through its move to Birmingham to what is now the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In July 1968, Hixson oversaw the groundbreaking for the new School of Nursing building on the UAB campus. She retired from UAB in 1970 and was named Professor Emerita by the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees. In honor of her contributions to nursing and to UAB, the former nursing dormitory, Hixson Hall, was named in her honor in 1985.
Dr. Marie L. O’Koren, the Great Expander
O’Koren was the second dean of the UAB School of Nursing, serving from 1970 until her retirement in 1987. She began her 40-year nursing career in 1946 as a diploma graduate of the University of Minnesota School of nursing. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Long Beach State College in 1957, and both a Master of Science in Nursing and a Doctor of Education from the University of Alabama. While pursuing her education at UA, she received the prestigious National League for Nursing Doctoral Fellowship in 1962, and in 1963 she received the Bixler Scholarship.
In 1958, O’Koren joined the School’s faculty and in 1964 she became Assistant Dean and chair of the graduate programs. As dean from 1970 until her retirement in 1987, O’Koren grew the school’s enrollment and degrees offered, increasing the number of master’s degree tracks and developing the first doctoral program in nursing in the Southeast. O’Koren also was responsible for planning the construction of a new building for the school on the UAB campus, which opened in 1971.
During her tenure as dean, O’Koren served as a member of the National Advisory on Nurse Training and as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Professional Nursing. She was named a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and received the UAB Distinguished Faculty Lecture Award, the UAB National Alumni Society Distinguished Alumnus Award and the UAB School of Nursing Distinguished Alumni Award. She also was a charter member of the UAB School of Nursing Alumni Association.
O’Koren served as chairman of the Southern Regional Education Board’s Committee on Graduate Education in Nursing, was a member of the National League for Nursing Council on Baccalaureate and Higher Degree Accreditation Board of Review. She received the Exemplary Service Award from the Alabama Association of College Administrators in 1987. O’Koren was inducted into the Alabama Nursing Hall of Fame in 2005.
Dr. Rachel Z. Booth, the Refiner and Strategist
Booth was the third dean of the School, serving from 1987 until her retirement in 2005. She attended Furman University for a year before graduating from a diploma nursing school, the Greenville General Hospital School of Nursing. She pursued degrees at the University of Maryland, earning baccalaureate and master's degrees in nursing, and then a PhD in education, with a major in higher education administration.
She began her academic career at the University of Maryland, holding administrative and faculty positions in nursing service and nursing education—eventually becoming Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies. Booth attracted national attention as she led the way in setting up prototype clinics that utilized nurse practitioners and helped write a grant that established one of the country’s first education programs for nurse practitioners.
She moved from Maryland to Duke University and was working as Assistant Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean and Professor of the School of Nursing, when the third president of UAB, Dr. Charles A. "Scotty" McCallum, recruited Booth to become the third dean of the UAB School of Nursing. During her 18 years leading the School, Booth put in place strong resources for a research program, brought progressive nurse practitioner programs to life, established a PhD in nursing program and founded the School's community-support group, the Board of Visitors. She also embarked on an exciting global health journey, helping establish the UAB School of Nursing as a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. In 1999, she was awarded an honorary doctoral degree in nursing by the King of Thailand—making her the first foreign nurse to receive this honor in Thailand.
Booth was president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing from 1994-96 and was inducted into both the Alabama Nursing Hall of Fame and the Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame during her time at the UAB School of Nursing.
Dr. Doreen C. Harper, the Evolutionary Innovator
Harper was the fourth dean of the UAB School of Nursing, serving from 2005 until her retirement in 2022.
A native of Riverside, Rhode Island, Harper knew she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her parents who were both in health care. Harper earned her baccalaureate degree in nursing from Cornell University, a master’s in nursing from Catholic University, a PhD from the University of Maryland in College Park and a post-master’s nurse practitioner certificate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Throughout her academic career as a nurse practitioner, Harper served as a faculty member and leader at George Mason University College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Maryland School of Nursing and The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, later becoming dean of the University of Massachusetts Medical School Graduate School of Nursing in 2000. She worked tirelessly as a nurse leader to advance health care quality and equity, and advocate for baccalaureate and higher degree nursing education, leadership, excellence and advanced practice. She moved from the UMass deanship to take the helm at the UAB School of Nursing.
Dean Harper’s 17-year tenure as dean of the UAB School of Nursing was marked by a drive to propel the school forward in its impact not only throughout Alabama, but globally. She led the development of a comprehensive strategic plan that laid the foundation for not only a historic building campaign for a $32 million state-of-the-art building expansion and renovation of the school, but also substantial growth in the School’s endowment funding for student scholarships, faculty recruitment and program support. The results set the stage for a meteoric rise in national rankings, student enrollment, research funding and practice impact. Harper led the expansion of new educational programming, including the Accelerated Master’s in Nursing Pathway, the Doctor of Nursing Practice, and numerous new graduate specialty tracks for advanced practice nurses. She established and grew the school’s clinical partnership initiatives to include a number of innovative nurse-led clinics, with nurses, nurse practitioners and other health disciplines caring for the state's most vulnerable populations in urban and rural areas.
In collaboration with UAB Medicine, Harper developed the UAB Nursing Partnership to align school resources with UAB Medicine’s needs. She also was the first nursing dean named to the board of the UAB Health System. She created the school’s first National Advisory Council and significantly increased alumni engagement. Harper’s global contributions were evidenced through the School’s continual redesignation as a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for International Nursing, and her long-term service on prominent boards, organizational committees and advisory councils.
Harper is the recipient of numerous national and international academic, research and service awards, including induction into the Alabama Nursing Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Nursing.
Dr. Maria Rodriguez Shirey, the Entrepreneurial Relationship Builder
Shirey became the fifth dean of the UAB School of Nursing in June 2022. She is the first Hispanic dean of nursing in the state of Alabama and the first minority to lead the School in its 75-year history. She was born in Cuba and came to the United States when she was 5 years old. She was reared in Miami, Florida and become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Shirey earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Florida State University, a Master of Science in Nursing from Texas Woman’s University, a Master of Business Administration from Tulane University and PhD in Nursing Science at Indiana University.
Shirey came to the UAB School of Nursing in 2013 as a tenured Professor and Assistant Dean for Clinical and Global Partnerships. She became Chair of the School’s Department of Acute, Chronic and Continuing Care serving from 2015-2019. From 2019-2022, she served as the School’s Associate Dean for Clinical and Global Partnerships and was the inaugural holder of the Jane H. Brock – Florence Nightingale Endowed Professorship in Nursing. As Dean, she holds the Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing.
She began her career as a bedside cardiovascular critical care nurse and progressed rapidly through the leadership ranks in several health care organizations. She has served as an administrator, director over health care service lines and patient care services, hospital vice president and entrepreneur having founded multiple outpatient clinics. As founding director of the Magnet Program for Excellence in Nursing Services at Deaconess Hospital in Evansville, Indiana she positioned the organization for successful Magnet designation. She has served in multiple adjunct and full-time faculty roles, teaching nursing leadership and management in diploma and higher education programs at the BSN, MSN, DNP and PhD levels. She is a sought-after mentor to doctoral students concentrating her research on leadership science and health services outcomes.
Since joining UAB, Shirey has extended her initial research focus on authentic leadership in nursing to also include development of interprofessional collaborative practice models to advance care access and health equity for vulnerable populations with chronic diseases. Her unique interprofessional point of view has allowed her to bring to UAB extramural funding of more than $20 million since 2013. She has been awarded three U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration training grants to establish the Heart Failure Transitional Care Services for Adults (HRTSA) Clinic in collaboration with UAB Medicine, and to help improve health outcomes in medically underserved areas.
In recognition of her work, she has been named a Fellow of the National Academies of Practice, Academy of Nursing Education, American Academy of Nursing and American College of Healthcare Executives. For her career contributions to advancing leadership and health systems science, Shirey was recognized in 2019 by the American Organization for Nursing Leadership with its Nurse Researcher Award and received the inaugural Suzanne Smith Memorial Award for Scholarly Writing Excellence from the Association for Leadership Science in Nursing in 2016.