Terri Donaldson, DNP, MSN, has been named director of Vanderbilt University School of Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice Program. For the past year, she has served as co-director with Donna McArthur, Ph.D., MSN, who will continue as faculty in the DNP program that she helped develop.
“Donna did a wonderful job launching our Doctor of Nursing Practice program and highly recommended Terri as her successor,” said Linda Norman, senior associate dean of Academics. “Terri is an expert clinician and educator, who understands the extraordinary potential of the DNP program and its role in shaping the future of health care delivery.”
VUSN’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program was started in 2008 with an inaugural class of 32 students. The program has grown rapidly, with incoming classes now typically reaching 70 students.
Donaldson has nearly 30 years of experience in the nursing and nursing education arenas. She is an associate professor of Nursing, who started with VUSN as adjunct faculty in 1994. She has also served in various clinical roles, including as an acute care nurse practitioner. She officially joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 1995 as a heart transplant coordinator.
She is a member of several professional organizations, including the Middle Tennessee Advanced Practice Nurses, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and Sigma Theta Tau International.
She earned her Master of Nursing degree from Emory University and her Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center in Memphis.