Meet the UC Nursing Interim Leadership Team

Throughout her 40-plus-year career, Denise Gormley has impacted nursing education and practice on several fronts, including teaching and mentoring thousands of graduate students, creating opportunities for the advancement of nursing education through new delivery methods and collaboration with health systems, implementing strategic partnerships to increase experiential learning opportunities and developing tools and models that improve patient care.

Since joining the college in 2008, Gormley has held positions ranging from assistant professor to director of Nursing Administration programs, executive director for Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) programs, executive director for graduate programs and, since 2018, senior associate dean of academic affairs. Under her leadership, the college has been nationally recognized for innovative teaching, exemplary faculty and model academic-practice partnerships.

Through her tenure, Gormley has led the transition of several advanced-practice nursing programs and the RN to BSN program to an online format, ensuring that a growing number of students throughout the country can access the college’s nationally ranked education. She has role-modeled the use of technology to support novel teaching strategies, created new tools and models with market potential and fostered an educational environment where innovation is encouraged.

“During this transitional period, our focus remains on leading the improvement of patient care; promoting health across the care continuum; supporting the health and wellbeing of our students, faculty and staff; and on diversity and inclusive excellence in all we do,” Gormley says.

Gormley has been the recipient of several research grants, including a $1.2 million Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) award to develop a model of nurse-led interprofessional practice opportunities in an academic health center/Level 1 Trauma Center hospital system. She also created a new technology-driven nurse handoff tool to improve communication and efficiency, help standardize shift handoff information, decrease overtime and boost nurse and patient satisfaction. For this innovation, she was chosen to participate in a pre-accelerator program at UC’s 1819 Innovation Hub.

“Denise has a unique skill in forming and maintaining strong and effective relationships with faculty, staff, students and the UC and outside communities. Her nursing administration background of 30-plus years has equipped her with a toolkit to handle any situation,” says Greer Glazer, PhD, RN, FAAN, the college’s dean emeritus. “She has stepped into the role of interim dean with a knowledge base and familiarity with all aspects of running the college, and I can confidently say that faculty, staff and students will continue to thrive in their roles professionally and personally under her leadership.”

A pioneer in combining technology and instructional design best practices with nursing education, Christine Colella not only excels as an outstanding primary care nurse practitioner at a federally qualified health center, but also as a leader in interprofessional collaboration. Her ability to blend these talents shines in what is most notably her highest priority — ensuring that the college’s graduate students, whether onsite or online, receive the best education possible and work at their highest potential to provide safe, quality care to all patients.

Colella has served in a variety of faculty roles at the college since 1995 and is currently a professor of clinical nursing. She brings a long history of excellence in teaching and clinical practice, having received numerous local, regional and national recognitions for her innovative teaching. The interim associate dean position has expanded her role as clinical professor and executive director of graduate programs, in which she manages nearly 50 faculty and program directors on the development of graduate nursing program curriculum, assignments, program evaluation and accreditation. She also oversees thousands of clinical sites and preceptors to ensure meaningful hands-on practice for graduate students across the country.

Under her leadership, the college’s graduate programs have been consistently ranked in the top 15 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. She has presented regionally and nationally and published extensively in nursing education on topics that include motivating online learners, clinical decision-making and teaching tools for nurse practitioner interventions.

“I’m honored and excited for the opportunity to expand my contribution to the college’s growth and strong reputation as a national leader in nursing education,” Colella says. An early adopter of technology in teaching, Colella has effectively led the development and implementation of strategies to improve learning outcomes. She has been recognized for her innovative online Interactive Case Studies, a successful HRSA-funded interprofessional initiative that enables distance learners to experience the same “hands-on” diagnosis experiences as on-campus students. Her unique approach to teaching nursing and medical students led to the solution’s licensing and commercialization by an external company.

A fellow in the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, Colella was appointed to a UC taskforce for clinical re-entry during the COVID-19 pandemic, to an advisory committee for a university-wide wellness initiative and to a subcommittee focused on integrating students at the university’s Academic Health Center into interprofessional education opportunities.

Angie Clark joined the college as a PhD student and graduate assistant in 2012 and has taught at the college since 2015, having been appointed associate professor with tenure track last summer. The interim associate dean position has expanded her role as executive director for undergraduate and pre-licensure programs, in which she has led two pre-licensure nursing programs and an RN to BSN program, an interprofessional team of faculty and more than 1,100 students.

With a solid background in community health nursing, program and curriculum development and public health education and research, Clark is a strong voice for the nursing profession and advocate fighting the national opioid epidemic. Her research leverages technology to deliver high-fidelity interventions encompassing all aspects of addiction, from harm-reduction efforts to advocacy for policy change to treatment expansion. Her expertise in raising the voice of nursing to fight the opioid epidemic is nationally recognized and reflected in the reputation of her research sponsors, including the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation, HRSA and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. She has disseminated research findings in several journal publications and regional and national presentations.

In addition to her impressively funded research, Clark's innovative approaches have made her a critical contributor to national and global initiatives. These include diversity-focused programs, expansion and sustainability of the college's digital transformation and development of novel international partnerships to immerse students in other cultures. She combines the power of nursing scholarship with her expertise in leveraging technology to transform education to systematically advance nursing research, evidenced-based education, practice and policy reform. "Accepting the interim associate dean position was a no-brainer, as the opportunity to serve in an expanded role with additional responsibilities was very exciting," Clark says. "This is a great time to be a part of nursing education; there's so much great work to be done."

Among other recognitions, Clark was selected as an Apple Distinguished Educator and inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She has completed internships at the National Institutes of Health and American Association of Colleges of Nursing and has experience with Urban Universities for Health, holistic admissions and serving as a consultant for a minority pathway grant. She is a consistent member of Apple's "think tanks" and has developed initiatives with global corporations, such as General Electric.