Description:

Linda Flynn, PhD, RN, FAAN, serves as dean and professor of the Rutgers School of Nursing. In part one (Jan. 14, 2021), Dr. Flynn traces her background growing up Washington, D.C. and attending the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She began her nursing career in labor and delivery and then in acute care. For nearly thirty years, she worked in community health and Medicare-certified home health. She earned her master's in community health nursing and PhD in Nursing Research from the Rutgers School of Nursing. She served as a professor at the University of Colorado and University of Maryland-Baltimore, before returning to Rutgers in 2017. In the interview, she traces the early response at Rutgers and at the School of Nursing to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as shifting to remote learning in classrooms and adapting clinical placements to a virtual model. She talks about the toll the pandemic took on the student body educationally, as well as for students working in the health care profession, and how the school responded in terms of curriculum and support structures. She discusses the evolution of clinical placements at different times in 2020. In part two (July 18, 2022), Dr. Flynn discusses the role of the School of Nursing in the VAX Corps and the establishment of vaccine clinics in Newark and New Brunswick, as well as the creation of the Student Nurse Reserve Corps to help during the nursing shortage. She examines changes in curriculum in terms of mental health, population health, public health, and diversity, inclusion and equity. She talks about how the pandemic has affected the nursing profession overall and undergraduate education in nursing specifically. This oral history is a part of Paul Clemens and Johanna Schoen's research into Rutgers during the COVID-19 pandemic.