Julee Waldrop, DNP'10, will serve as the assistant dean of the DNP Program beginning on June 1, 2021!

Waldrop earned a BA in Education with a specialization in physical education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her BSN from Texas Woman’s University and MS from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

She has taught nursing, primarily NPs, for over 20 years, teaching many different courses, primarily children’s and women’s health but also pathophysiology, pharmacology and health assessment as needed. She has taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago-Urbana Campus, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and The University of Central Florida and is a certified nurse educator. Her favorite aspect of teaching is working individually with undergraduate honors students, master’s students and DNP students on projects. Students she has worked with have been very successful in writing manuscripts about their scholarly work at all levels with 21 achieving success in publication.

As a certified pediatric nurse practitioner and family nurse practitioner, as a primary care practitioner, she is a generalist at heart, but her clinical area of expertise is holistic newborn care, including the mother and her support systems. Her expertise as a clinician and educator led to a faculty practice award from the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties and membership as a Fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Her research and scholarship focus on infants, young children and mothers, and she has been able to participate in many areas of research and scholarship including educational scholarship.

She is editor-in-chief of The Journal for Nurse Practitioners and in this leadership role for the NP profession seeks to support and encourage new authors to showcase the excellent work they are doing in clinical practice, research, policy and advocacy. She has been a CCNE site evaluator for seven years, and, through work submitted to the journal and visiting many DNP programs across the country, she has a big picture of the state of DNP programs nationally.

She is committed to a growth mindset in her personal work to become a better human: A human who acts to improve systems and structures that oppress people who are not of the dominant culture.

Waldrop's DUSON position was covered by FOX10News and WKRG News 5.

Welcome Waldrop! A sincere thank you to Barbara Turner, who is serving as the interim leader until Waldrop’s arrival.