Carol Fetters Andersen, MSN, RN, enrolled at TC in the fall of 2005, and is one of nine doctoral candidates in the Nurse Executive Program cohort. Carol’s goal is to complete the EdD in 2009. Her dissertation interests relate to the exploration of facilitators and barriers to leadership development experiences by underrepresented minority faculty in nursing education. Carol is the Director of Product Development for the National League for Nursing in New York.
“I am so thrilled to be completing the doctoral program in nursing at Teachers College and beginning my involvement with the NEAA. TC is a wonderful and empowering place to learn, with exceptional faculty from a variety of roles and academic disciplines. My eight classmates are exceptional nurse leaders in their own areas of nursing education, practice, and organizational leadership. I feel privileged to study and learn with them, as we challenge each other to succeed and thrive. We have a collective and individual commitment to leave nursing better than we found it. This commitment carries on the work begun by M. Adelaide Nutting when she became the first nurse in the world to attain the position of professor of nursing in 1907, and assumed a leadership role as director of the new nursing program at TC. I am awed by the ongoing work and leadership provided by TC alumni since those early days of TC. Thank you for your efforts to make the nine of us feel welcome and already a part of NEAA! I hope to see and meet many of you at the 2007 Stewart Conference.”\
Ms. Carol Fetters Andersen has held numerous organizational leadership roles in nursing over the past 18 years. In 1988, while in her undergraduate nursing program at Grand View College in Des Moines, IA, she assumed the role of membership director for the Iowa Association of Nursing Students. She later served in 1990 as state president and went on to be elected national president of the National Student Nurses’ Association 1991-1992. In her junior academic year, Fetters Andersen was also awarded recognition as a National VA Scholar in nursing, inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International Zeta Chi chapter in 1991, and featured in Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges in 1991-1992.
After graduation from Grand View College with her BSN in the spring of 1992, she continued her passion for nursing as a mental health nurse at the Central Iowa VA Healthcare System in Knoxville, IA, serving as co-chair of the Knoxville VA Nursing Research Committee, and began her MSN program at the University of Iowa which she completed in 1998. Fetters Andersen continued to develop as a nurse manager and leader in professional nursing organizations serving as an RN Case Manager, the Clinical Coordinator of a Geriatric Behavioral Health Unit, as a Director of Mental Health Services and on the Board of Directors of the Iowa Nurses’ Association, and later as First Vice President of the Maryland Nurses’ Association.
Her book, “Nursing Student to Nursing Leader: The critical path to leadership development in nursing” published by Delmar Thomson Learning (1999; second edition under revision), is being used by nursing schools in the US and abroad and is the required text for NSNA’s Leadership University In 2001, Fetters Andersen was awarded the Edith Ruppert Award for contributions significant to the improvement of nursing by the Iowa Nurses’ Association. After moving to Maryland in 2002, she served as the Magnet Status Coordinator for the Sheppard Pratt Health System, and then as a nurse faculty member at Harford Community College in Bel Air, MD and the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.
In December 2004, Fetters Andersen accepted a position at the National League for Nursing as their manager for Professional Development, and served in that role which included managing and coordinating the regional workshops, conferences and the 2006 NLN Summit program in New York City. During this time she became a member of ASAE, a graduate student member of the NLN, and continued as a sustaining member of the National Student Nurses Association since 1992. In 2007, Fetters Andersen was promoted to the role of Director of Product Development for the NLN. In this new role, she will facilitate the creation, revision, and implementation of comprehensive NLN assessment products and services that will assist nursing students, nurse faculty leaders, and nurse administrators to evaluate teaching and learning outcomes within changing nursing education and practice environments.
While NSNA President, she served as a contributing author on the ANA Position Statement on HIV and Student Nurses, and was an invited panelist along with the late Mary Starke Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN, at the National Conference on Gerontological Nursing Education in Norfolk, VA. As the NLN representative, Fetters Andersen attended the 2006 National Leadership Summit on Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health, DHHS Office of Minority Health in Washington, DC, from January 9-11, 2006. During the National Leadership Summit’s Commemorative event on January 10, 2006, she was again able to honor and re-connect with Dr. Mary Starke Harper, who received the prestigious Secretary’s Award and was recognized as a visionary leader whose inimitable contributions have advanced minority health and health disparities as a national priority.
Obituary
Carol A. Andersen, 62, passed away on March 4, 2017 at her home in Austin, Texas after a long, hard fought battle with cancer. During her life, Carol was an accomplished nursing practitioner, scholar, and educational advocate. Her nursing education began at Grand View University Division of Nursing where she earned a BSN in 1992. From there, Carol earned a Masters of Science in Nursing in 1998 from the University of Iowa's College of Nursing, and her EdD in 2014 from Teachers College.
Having proven herself a champion of mental health awareness and treatment, she served as Director of Mental Health Services for the St Anthony Regional Hospital in Carroll Iowa from 1999 to 2002 and as Magnet Status Coordinator for the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore from 2002 to 2004. During this time, she worked tirelessly in the field of geriatric dementia, an area she considered her specialty.
She taught at Harford Community College in Bel Air, MD from 2003 to 2005; served as Director of Curriculum Assessment and Retention Solutions for the National League for Nursing in NYC from 2004 to 2008; and as Director of Governance and Program Development for the National Student Nurses Association from 2008 to 2011. Since 2011, held the title of Director of the Palestine, TX Nursing Program and Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Tyler’s School of Nursing.
During her nursing career, she contributed to nine books and publications, most notably she was the author and editor of Nursing Student to Nursing Leader: The Critical Path to Leadership Development, and her doctoral dissertation, “Understanding the lived experience of Black or African American nurse educators achieving tenure in the early 21st century.”
She served as president of the Iowa Association of Nursing Students in 1990 and in 1991 she was elected president of the National Student Nurses’ Association.
Carol's friendly manner, magnetic personality, and her ability to engage in constructive and interesting conversation drew all types of people to her. She had an uncanny knack for making perfect strangers feel as though they had been friends for years, and selflessly gave of her time to anyone who needed it.
A memorial scholarship fund to support undergraduate nursing education has been established by the family. Contributions in memory of Carol Andersen may be sent to the Foundation of the National Student Nurses’ Association, 45 Main Street, Suite 606, Brooklyn, NY 11201.