Mavis Schorn, Ph.D., CNM, has been named senior associate dean for Academics at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.
She has served as assistant dean for Academics for the past three years while maintaining an active clinical practice at West End Women’s Health Center.
“Mavis is the ideal person for this position. She is a gifted educator, an effective manager and well respected within the Vanderbilt and health care communities,” said Linda Norman, DSN, R.N., dean of VUSN and Valere Potter Menefee Professor of Nursing. “We look forward to the many contributions she will bring to the School.”
Schorn joined the Vanderbilt Nurse-Midwifery faculty in 2002 and became its director in 2006. Under her leadership, the program has grown in prominence, and is ranked by U.S. News and World Report among the top three graduate nurse-midwifery programs in the country.
In 2010, she assumed the newly created position of assistant dean for Academics, while continuing to lead the Nurse-Midwifery program and maintaining her clinical practice.
As her role is expanding, Schorn has focused primarily on regulatory and compliance issues, systematic program evaluations, global health opportunities and other school-wide academic needs. She has held national leadership roles in the American College of Nurse-Midwives, and is recognized for her research on pregnancy, specifically the third stage of labor.
Schorn earned her baccalaureate in Nursing from the University of Texas, Austin; her Master’s in Science from Texas Woman’s University, Houston; her Nurse-Midwifery certificate from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; and her Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
She was inducted into the fellowship of the American College of Nurse-Midwives in 2011. She has consistently received clinical practice awards for meeting national satisfaction benchmarks and was named the Tennessee March of Dimes Nurse of the Year for Education in 2010.