Dr. Geraldine Bednash, CEO and Executive Director, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, to Speak at December Graduation

President McGuire announced that the 2010 December Graduation speaker at Trinity Washington University will be Dr. Geraldine Bednash, chief executive officer and executive director of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.  She will receive an honorary doctor of letters.  Trinity will hold its first December Graduation on Thursday, December 16, at 5:00 pm in the Trinity Center for Women and Girls in Sports. This graduation marks the first time that students will graduate from the new School of Nursing and Health Professions.  More than 150 bachelor’s and master’s degrees will be conferred.

Dr. Geraldine “Polly” Bednash, RN, FAAN, was appointed executive director of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) in December 1989.  In her role as chief executive officer, Bednash oversees the educational, research, governmental affairs, publications and other programs of the organization that is the national voice for baccalaureate and graduate-degree education programs in nursing — the nation’s largest health care profession.  Representing more than 640 member schools of nursing at public and private institutions nationwide, AACN is the only national organization dedicated exclusively to furthering nursing education in America’s universities and four-year colleges.

Prior to serving as executive director and CEO, Bednash headed the association’s legislative and regulatory advocacy programs as director of government affairs.  In that post since 1986, she directed AACN’s efforts to secure strong federal support for nursing education and research, coordinated new initiatives with federal agencies and with major foundations, and co-authored AACN’s landmark study of the financial costs to students and to clinical agencies of baccalaureate and graduate nursing education.

Bednash currently serves as the chair of the Nursing Alliance for Quality Care, as a member of the Sullivan Alliance to Transform the Health Professions and is a member of the Quality Alliance Steering Committee. She has served on multiple boards and commissions including the board of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine, the advisory board for the National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nursing Associations scholars development project, the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Health Professions and on the editorial boards of several leading nursing publications.  She also serves on the advisory board for the National Center for the Analysis of Health Care Data.  Her publications and research presentations cover a range of critical issues in nursing education, research, clinical practice and legislative policy.

Before joining AACN, Bednash was assistant professor at the School of Nursing at George Mason University and a Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Faculty Fellow in Primary Care at the University of Maryland.  Her experience includes development of resource policy for the Geriatric Research, Evaluation and Clinical Centers of the Veterans Administration; serving as a nurse practitioner and consultant to the family practice residency program at DeWitt Army Hospital at Fort Belvoir, Virginia; and service as an Army Nurse Corps staff nurse in Vung Tau, Vietnam.  Additionally, Bednash served as the first chair of the board for the Association Mutual Health Insurance Company, the first national captive insurance company developed to provide health insurance coverage for employees of higher education associations.

Bednash received her bachelor of science degree in nursing from Texas Woman’s University, her master of science in nursing from The Catholic University of America, and her doctorate in higher education policy and law from the University of Maryland.  She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and member of nursing’s national honor society, Sigma Theta Tau International.

December Graduation Ceremony

American Association of Colleges of Nursing